BES 144b3e

BES-144
Pedagogy of English
Indira Gandhi
National Open University
School of Education
Block
3
READING COMPREHENSION
UNIT 11
Reading Comprehension-I 7
UNIT 12
Reading Comprehension-II 21
UNIT 13
Teaching Literary Texts-I 48
UNIT 14
Teaching Literary Texts-II 59
UNIT 15
Teaching Vocabulary 59
EXPERT COMMITTEE
Prof. I. K. Bansal (Chairperson) Prof. Anju Sehgal Gupta
Former Head, Department of Elementary School of Humanities,
Education, NCERT, New Delhi IGNOU, New Delhi
Prof. Shridhar Vashistha Prof. N. K. Dash (Director)
Former Vice-Chancellor School of Education
Lal Bahadur Shastri Sanskrit IGNOU, New Delhi
Vidhyapeeth, New Delhi
Prof. Parvin Sinclair Prof. M. C. Sharma
Former Director, NCERT (Programme Coordinator- B.Ed.)
School of Sciences, School of Education
IGNOU, New Delhi IGNOU, New Delhi
Prof. Aejaz Mashih Dr. Gaurav Singh

Faculty of Education, (Programme Co-coordinator-B.Ed.)
Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi School of Education
IGNOU, New Delhi
Prof. Pratyusha Kumar Mandal
DESSH, NCERT, New Delhi
SPECIAL INVITEES (FACULTY OF SOE)

Prof. D. Venkateshwarlu Dr. Bharti Dogra
Prof. Amitav Mishra Dr. Vandana Singh
Ms. Poonam Bhushan Dr. Elizabeth Kuruvilla
DR. Eisha Kannadi Dr. Niradhar Dey
Dr. M. V. Lakshmi Reddy
Course Coordinator : Ms. Poonam Bhushan

COURSE PREPARATION TEAM
Course Writers Content and Language Editing
Ms. Vijaya Subramaniam Prof. Anju S. Gupta
Formerly with Sardar Patel SOH, IGNOU
Vidyalaya
New Delhi
Dr. Pushpinder Syal Format Editing

Deptt. of English Ms. Poonam Bhushan
Panjab University SOE
Panjab, Chandigarh Proof Reading
Ms. Poonam Bhushan
Dr. Gopa Majumdar SOE
Formerly with NIOS
Delhi
PRINT PRODUCTION
Prof. Saroj Pandey Mr. S.S. Venkatachalam
Director Assistant Registrar (Publication)
SOE, IGNOU, New Delhi SOE, IGNOU, New Delhi
April, 2017
 Indira Gandhi National Open University, 2017
ISBN: 978-81-266-
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form, by mimeograph or any other
means, without permission in writing from the Indira Gandhi National Open University.
Further information on the Indira Gandhi National Open University courses may be obtained from
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Printed and published on behalf of the Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, by the
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BES-144 PEDAGOGY OF ENGLISH
Block 1 Instructional Planning in Teaching of English
Unit 1 Nature, Need and Objectives of English as a
Second Language
Unit 2 The Language Learner
Unit 3 Approaches, Methods and Techniques in
English Language Teaching
Unit 4 Daily Lesson Plans and Strategies for
Classroom Transaction
Unit 5 Monitoring Instruction - The Reflective Teacher
Block 2 Listening Comprehension and Speaking

Unit 6 Teaching Listening-I
Unit 7 Teaching Listening-II
Unit 8 Teaching Speaking Skills
Unit 9 Speaking Activities
Unit 10 Assessing Listening and Speaking
Block 3 Reading Comprehension

Unit 11 Reading Comprehension-I
Unit 12 Reading Comprehension-II
Unit 13 Teaching Literary Texts-I
Unit 14 Teaching Literary Texts-II
Unit 15 Teaching Vocabulary
Block 4 Teaching Writing and Grammar

Unit 16 Developing Writing Skills
Unit 17 Different Types of Writing
Unit 18 Assessing Writing Ability
Unit 19 Teaching Grammar (To Advanced Learners)
in Higher Classes
Reading Comprehension
READING COMPREHENSION
Introduction to the Block
This Block is about reading in English as a second language or foreign
language. A lot of research has been done on different aspects of reading
particularly in the last two decades, but we cannot possibly deal with all of
it in this Block. We will discuss some of the current ideas about reading and
how they can be used in the second language classroom.
The first two units namely, Reading Comprehension I and II are an attempt
to relate the reasons for reading with appropriate reading styles. These units
also highlight the teaching objectives and principles underlying reading
comprehension activities and describe the three phases of a reading lesson.
The reading comprehension activities and exercises can be used or adapted
by a teacher in her/his classroom.
The third and fourth unit of the Block focus on developing on understanding
of how we as teachers, may approach the teaching of literature, an important
element in the teaching of language. Here we consider the different kinds
of literary texts and see if we can adopt ways of teaching them effectively.
Prose, fiction, drama and poetry may require different approaches, therefore,
our aim is to explore the means of reading and appreciating each type of
literacy text.
Since an important aid to competent reading is having a vocabulary, the last
unit i.e., Teaching Vocabulary discusses the importance of vocabulary in the
framework of devising interesting ways of teaching and learning of words.
4
UNIT 11 READING COMPREHENSION-I
Structure
11.1 Objectives
11.2 Introduction
11.3 Reasons for Reading and Reading Styles
11.4 Reading Comprehension and Teaching Implications
11.7 Teaching Objectives for Reading
11.8 Principles Underlying Producing or Using Reading Comprehension
Exercises
11.9 Reading Comprehension in the Classroom
11.10 Let Us Sum Up
11.11 Answers
11.12 Suggested Reading
11.1 OBJECTIVES
After going through this unit, you should be able to:
 relate the reasons for reading with the appropriate reading style;
 aware of the teaching objectives and principles underlying reading
comprehension activities; and
 describe the three phases of a reading lesson and identify the questions
belonging to each phase.
11.2 INTRODUCTION
A simple definition of reading is that it is a process whereby one looks at
and understands what has been written. The key word is ‘understands’ —
merely reading aloud does not count as reading. This definition does not
mean that the learner needs to understand everything in a text. Understanding
is not an `all or nothing’ process, and therefore reading too is not an ‘ail or
nothing process either’. It means that every reader will comprehend something
and perhaps some readers may not understand every word and nor is this
necessary.
Again, although reading has been defined as a process whereby one looks
at and understands what has been written, the reader does not necessarily
need to look at everything in a given piece of writing. The reader actively
works on the text and is able to arrive at understanding it without looking
at every letter and word.
11.3 REASONS FOR READING AND READING

STYLES
People generally do not read unless they have a reason for reading, i.e., they
have a need of some kind that can be satisfied through reading. Furthermore
in case of an effective reader, his/her reason for reading will also influence 5
Reading Comprehension his/her style of reading. The effective reader is one who is able to adapt his/
her style to his/her purpose, and does not read everything slowly and
intensively. Learning language should not be an aim in itself — the ultimate
aim is to be able to use language appropriately. It is therefore important to
give learners practice in different reading styles. This is achieved not by
telling learners to skim, read intensively, etc. but by setting tasks that
encourage the use of these styles.
The following diagram summarises the relationship between reasons for
reading and various styles of reading.
REASONS
General information Information from Pleasure or
about the text the text interest
scanning
skimming
intensive extensive
rapid
STYLES
reading
Check Your Progress 1

1. Consider the following types of texts and write for each of them the
reason for reading it and the style of reading used. One has been done
for you.
Text Reason for Style of
Reading Reading Used
i. Railway time table Look for a Scanning
particular piece
of information
ii. Instruction for using
a machine
iii. Newspaper article
iv. An extract from a novel
v. Telephone directory
vi. A letter to the editor
vii. A notice
viii. A recipe
ix. A poem
x. Rules for playing a game
6
Reading Comprehension-I
11.4 READING COMPREHENSION AND
TEACHING IMPLICATIONS
The important thing to remember is that the reading comprehension passage
and the associated activities should promote skills in reading for
understanding. The following are some important characteristics of
‘understanding’ and their implications for teaching reading comprehension.
1. All readers bring something with them to a text in terms of a general
stock of knowledge. Knowledge of the world does not only cover
knowledge of a particular topic, it may include knowledge of a particular
topic, it may also include knowledge of a particular culture or a way
of life.
Teaching implications: Before reading the reading passage itself, one
can draw on the learners’ previous knowledge of the subject matter,
their experience of life in general. (This is the purpose of warm up/pre-
reading activities).
2. One can understand something better if one puzzles out things for
oneself. Advice and guidance are valuable. But true learning involves
a large element of personal discovery, struggle and achievement. The
outcome is that one is more confident and better equipped for further
and more challenging tasks of understanding. The same is true of reading
comprehension.
Teaching implications : Make students work out things for themselves.
Don’t spoon feed them by explaining the passage to them, but devise
exercises so that they can work them out on their own.
3. Understanding something will be deeper and will last longer if one
does something with the information one has just acquired e.g. one will
understand a recipe better if one has actually cooked the dish concerned.
This is equally true of reading.
Teaching implications : There should be exercises and activities to get
the learners to use this new found knowledge and ideas.
4. In trying to understand, for example, directions on how to get to
someone’s house, you need to concentrate exclusively on what the
directions are. Similarly, in reading, one needs to concentrate on reading
for understanding and not get sidetracked into other aspects of the
passage.
Teaching implications : While teaching reading comprehension, don’t
focus on teaching pronunciation or grammar.
5. Understanding anything is not an ‘all or nothing’ process. Similarly,
reading for understanding is not an ‘all or nothing process’ either.
Teaching implications: Don’t aim at ‘total comprehension’ of every
single word, sentence and item of the content of a passage.
6. The ability to understand anything or anybody is made up of a variety
of component sub-skills (e.g. anticipating what will come next,
7
Reading Comprehension distinguishing main elements from the details, bringing together
information from various sources). Reading, too, is composed of such
sub-skills.
Teaching implications: Instead of aiming at ‘total comprehension’ of
a particular reading passage, use that passage as a vehicle for teaching
the reading skills that the learner needs for reading other passages.

2. Write in your own words the various factors that you need to keep
in mind while constructing exercises for teaching reading
comprehension.
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11.5 TEACHING OBJECTIVES FOR READING

At the end of a reading programme we should expect our learners to be able
to achieve the following objectives at their own level, e.g. a learner at the
end of class VI should be able to identify the main points and details of a
passage suitable to his/her level and (s)/he should be able to do the same for
a difficult passage at the end of class IX.
 read silently at varying speed depending on the purpose of reading.
 adopt different reading strategies for different types of text.
 recognise the organisation of a text.
 identify the main points of a text.
 understand the relations between different parts of a text.
 anticipate and predict what will come next in a text.
 deduce the meaning of unfamiliar lexical items in a given context.
 consult a dictionary to obtain the required information.
 infer, analyse, interpret and evaluate the ideas in a text.
 select and extract from a text information required for a specific purpose.
 transcode i.e. transform information from verbal to diagrammatic form.
 read extensively for pleasure. In any given passage it is possible to
fulfil a combination of objectives i.e. when you choose a reading passage
you can set questions/exercises/activities which would fulfil a number
of objectives stated in ‘this list.
11.6 PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING PRODUCING

OR USING READING COMPREHENSION
EXERCISES
8 According to Francoise Grellet (1981), there are a number of considerations
to be borne in mind when producing or using reading comprehension
exercises/activities. One should start with global understanding (understanding Reading Comprehension-I
the text as a whole) and move towards detailed understanding rather than
working the other way round. Similarly, when constructing/using reading
comprehension exercises on a given text it is always preferable to start with
the overall meaning of the text, its function and aim, rather than working on
vocabulary or more specific ideas. This is important and essential because:
 It is an efficient way of building the learner’s confidence. If the activity
is global enough, the learner will not feel completely lost. They will
feel that at least they understand what the text is about and will later
feel less diffident when tackling a new text.
 It will develop an awareness of the way texts are organised (e.g. stating
the main aim and developing it or giving the chronological sequence of
events). It is this awareness of the general structure of a passage that
will allow the students to read more efficiently later on.
 Reading is a constant process of guessing and what one brings to the
text is often what one finds in it. From the beginning the learners
should be taught to use what they know, to understand unknown elements,
whether these are ideas or simple words and phrases. This is best
achieved through a global approach to the text.
 It is important to use authentic texts whenever possible (at least when
you are choosing an unseen passage for reading comprehension).
Authenticity means that nothing of the original text is changed and also
its presentation and layout are retained e.g. a newspaper article should
be presented as it first appeared in the paper. Getting the learners
accustomed to reading authentic texts from the very beginning as against
a simplified or adapted text does not necessarily mean a much more
difficult task on the learner’s part. The difficulty of a reading exercise
depends on the activities and the exercises rather than on the text itself.
Therefore, one should grade the activities and not necessarily the text.
 Another important principle when devising comprehension exercises is
that the activities should be flexible and varied. The exercises should be
suited to the texts and to one’s reasons for reading them. It is essential
to take into account the author’s point of view, intention and tone for
a full understanding of the text.
 Reading comprehension should not be separated from other skills. There
few cases in real life when we do not talk or write about what we read.
It is therefore important to link the different skills through the reading
activities.

3. What are the various considerations we must take care of in order
to make a learner an independent, efficient reader?
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11.7 READING COMPREHENSION IN THE
CLASSROOM
As you already know the first point to be noted when conducting a reading
lesson in the classroom is that it is a silent activity. Therefore silent reading
should be encouraged. The students should not read aloud. This would in
fact tend to give the impression that all the texts are to be read at the same
speed. Besides when we read, our eyes do not follow each word of the text
one after the other — at least in the case of efficient readers. On the contrary,
many words or expressions are simply skipped; we go back to check
something or go forward to confirm something. Such tactics became
impossible when reading aloud and this reading activity therefore tends to
prevent the learners from developing efficient reading strategies.
Three phases of a reading lesson
Pre-reading Phase
This phase consists of a variety of tasks. These tasks arouse learners’ interest
in the topic, encourage them to predict and deal with difficult vocabulary. In
order to help prepare for pre-reading work, useful questions that you can ask
yourself are:
 What knowledge, ideas or opinions might the learners already have on
the topic and how can this knowledge be drawn out and used?
 Why should anyone want to read this text and can the same or similar
reasons be generated in the learners?
The answers to these questions will give a clue to ways of introducing the
text, motivating the learners and at the same time will incorporate language
preparation. Visuals, drawing up of lists or setting questions (mostly oral)
may all play a part in pre-reading activities.
While-reading Phase
This phase draws on the text, rather than the learners’ ideas previous to the
reading activity. The aims of this phase are
 to help understand the writer’s purpose.
 to help understand the organisation of the text.
 to clarify the text content.
The traditional ‘Comprehension exercise’ at the end of the text is a typical
white-reading activity. There are usually plenty of these activities/exercises.
What you need to do is to consider whether these exercises correspond to
and fulfil the objectives of teaching reading.
The sort of questions that you can ask yourself as a guide to the while-
reading activities are the following :
 what is the function of this text ?
 how is the text organised? (narrative, descriptive, chronological, etc.)
10
 what content is to be extracted from the text?
 what may the learner infer or deduce? Reading Comprehension-I
 what reading style is suitable?

 what language may be learned from the text?
As a rule, while-reading work should begin with a general or global
understanding of the text, and then move to the smaller units such as
paragraphs, sentences and words. The reason for this is that the larger units
provide a context for understanding the smaller units – a paragraph or a
sentence may help the reader to understand a word.
Let us look at some examples of while-reading questions here.

1. How are wildlife sanctuaries of today different from the private
hunting preserves of kings and rulers?
(The purpose of this question is to check the students understandings
of two contrasted situations — wildlife sanctuaries and private
hunting preserves and this question can be answered when the learner
has an overall understanding of both the situations.) The organisation
of the test in ‘compare and contrast’ style can be discussed with the
students.
2. How did Helen Keller come to realise that she was different from
others?
(The question demands comprehension of all the situations/incidents/
happenings which Helen Keller faced before she realised that others
were different than her.) The importance of sequence of events in a
narrative style can be highlighted.
3. Why couldn’t Costas’ father accompany him to Mount Lycabettus?
(Demands local comprehension of the reasons that stopped Costas’
father from accompanying him to Mount Lycabettus.)
Post-reading Phase
The exercises/activities in this section do not directly refer to the text, but
grow out of it.
The aims of post-reading exercises are
1. to consolidate and reflect upon what has been read; and
2. to relate the text to the learner’s own knowledge, interests or views.
These exercises should contribute, in a coherent manner, to the writing,
speaking and listening skills.
Let us look at some post-reading questions given below.
1. Your class has been allowed to meet and interview Ms.Rita Panicker,
the Founder Director of Butterflies and Ms. Poonam Chandra, Co-
ordinator at Bal Sahyog. In groups of five, frame ten questions that you
would like to ask them about their organisation, the programmes they
run, the source of funds and the success of their efforts.
Compare your questions with other groups.
11
Reading Comprehension (Demands understanding of the programmes and activities of both the
organisations –Butterflies and Bal Sahyog. The lesson acts as a take-off
point to frame these extrapolatory questions.)
 Imagine that you are Squire Gordon – Black Beauty’s master. Write a
letter to your friend in the town narrating your miraculous escape on
that stormy night. (Based on the events of the lesson and yet provides
a chance to students for creative thinking and writing.)
 How is dinner time similar or different in your house from what has
been described in the poem?
(An attempt is made to relate the experience of the learners to what has
been described in the poem. Reading then becomes more meaningful
for the learners by giving them an opportunity to compare their own
experience in a similar situation.)
You may get ideas for post-reading work by asking yourself the following
questions:
 Do the learners know of a similar situation to that presented in the text?
 Does the text present a situation that invites completion?
 Does the text present views that might need to be counter-balanced?
If the answer to any of these questions is ‘yes’ then there is an opportunity
for post-reading activities.
This three-phase approach is not to be carried out mechanically on every
occasion. Sometimes you may wish to cut out the pre-reading stage and get
the learners to work on the text directly. Sometimes post-reading work may
not be required.
However, the advantage of this three-phase approach is two-fold:
 it respects and makes use of the learner’s knowledge of the language
and of the world and uses this as a basis for involvement, motivation
and progress.
 it leads to the integration of the skills in a coherent manner, so that the
reading session is not isolated.
Cheek Your Progress

4. Which phase of the reading lesson is it meant for pre, while or post
reading? Give reasons to justify your answer. You can do this even
without knowing the text.
1. How does Kezia begin to see her father as a human being who
needs her sympathy?
2. Do you feel you know your parents better now, than when you were
much younger? Perhaps you now understand the reasons for some
of their actions that used to upset you earlier.
3. Has your life been different from or similar to that of Kezia when
you were a child? Has your perception about your parents changed
now? Do you find any change in your parents’ behaviour vis-a-vis
12
Reading Comprehension-I
yours? Who has become more understanding? What steps would
you like to take to build a relationship based on understanding?
Write three or four paragraphs (150-200 words) discussing these
issues from your own experience.
4. Why was Kezia afraid of her father?
5. In what ways did Kezia’s grandmother encourage her to get to know
her father better?
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11.8 LET US SUM UP

You are aware about the nature of the reading process and the characteristics
of reading as a meaningful activity. In this unit, we have reiterated these
aspects of reading and at the same time tried to help you understand the
principles underlying producing and using reading comprehension exercises
which will help you to conduct the reading activity in the classroom in a
meaningful way.
11.9 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

1. Reason for Reading Style of Reading Used
ii) Looking carefully for Intensive
instructions for
operating a machine.
iii) Reasons may vary
a) To seek information Rapid reading followed
by more intensive reading
b) For interest Extensive reading
iv) Infer character traits, understand Intensive reading
sequence, appreciate literary style
v) Looking for a particular number Scanning
vi) For interest Scanning followed by
intensive reading
(if necessary)
vii) For particular information Scanning
viii) For proper instructions Intensive
ix) a) Appreciate the poem Intensive
b) For pleasure/enjoyment Extensive/Extensive
x) For total grasp of the rules Intensive
to be followed 13
Reading Comprehension 2.  make optional use of learners own experience.
 allow learners to negotiate meaning (do not always tell the answers
to the learners).
 the exercises to follow should be based on what has been learnt in
the lesson,
 the different sub-skills of reading are to be focussed on instead of
total comprehension of each and every word.
3. Proceed from global to local comprehension (for an overall view of the
text to local specific details); draw the students attention to the
organisation of the text; use authentic texts instead of simplified or
adapted ones; allow the learners to work through a variety of activities.
4. i. While reading ? understanding of the text is needed. ,
ii. Pre-reading ? reader’s own experience would help in understanding
the text well.
iii. Post reading ? allows the reader to express own thoughts after
reading the passage.
iv. While reading – understanding of the text is needed.
v. While reading- understanding of the text is needed.
11.10 SUGGESTED READING

Grellet, F. (1981); Developing Reading Skills, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge.
14
UNIT 12 READING COMPREHENSION-II
Structure
12.1 Objectives
12.2 Introduction
12.3 Reading Comprehension Questions
12.4 Skimming and Scanning
12.5 Devices Used for Textual Cohesion
12.6 Functions of a Text
12.7 Organisation of the Text
12.8 Let Us Sum Up
12.9 Key Words
12.10 Answers to Check Your Progress
12.11 Suggested Readings
12.1 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this unit, you should be able to:
 understand the various skills of reading comprehension;
 set questions and activities for different reading skills e.g. skimming
and scanning;
 describe various functions of texts;
 identify various devices used for textual cohesion and describe their
function; and
 analyse a variety of text in terms of its organisation.
12.2 INTRODUCTION
This unit attempts to give examples of various types of reading comprehension
exercises. There are illustrations of different types of exercise. The level of
difficulty of the text is not important - the exercises/activities suggested can
be adapted for different levels.
Why was Nitin tired? Use ‘got back’ in a What does ‘this
sentence of your own. one’ refer to?
Nitin shook his head tiredly as he walked down the steps of the hotel
and got back into the car. “No. This one has no room either.”
Check the What was Where is Is there anyone

pronunciation of hotel Nitin looking Nitin? else in the car? 15
from a dictionary. for?
Reading Comprehension A. Read the short passage in the box. Read the questions set on the passage
and judge whether the questions test comprehension or not. Write ‘yes’ or
‘no’ on the dash against each question.
B. Aim: To train the students to infer the meanings of unfamiliar words. In
the space provided write the word/phrases which help you deduce
the meaning of the words in bold.
a) I saw her walk away. Her day had been ruined. She had made a fool of
herself in public. She had impressed no one. In her own sad red eyes
she was a failure.
i) made a fool of herself
ii) ………………………
iii) ………………………
b) Monday morning found Tom Sawyer miserable. Monday mornings
always found him so, because it began another week’s slow suffering
in school.
i) ………………………
c) “Hey! Where are you going? Come back!” But the tinker was already
out of earshot. He was on his way back to Mirzapur twice as fast as
he left it, with his dog running behind him.
i) ………………………
ii) ………………………
iii) ………………………
iv) ………………………

1. Choose a short passage :
a) Frame 4-5 questions which test only Reading Comprehension.
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b) Frame 4-5 vocabulary exercises where the student has to deduce
the meaning of unfamiliar words from other words in the text.
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12.4 SKIMMING AND SCANNING

You have already come across these terms. Both skimming and scanning are
specific reading techniques necessary for quick and efficient reading.
When skimming, we go through the reading material quickly in order to get
the gist of it, to know how it is organised, or to get an idea of the tone or
the intention of the writer. When scanning, we only try to locate specific
16 information and often we do not even read the whole passage to do so. We
simply let our eyes wander over the text until we find what we are looking Reading Comprehension-II
for, whether it be a name, a date, or a less specific piece of information. The
activities suggested below to practise scanning also try to put the students
in an authentic situation where they would naturally scan the text rather than
read it. The students are therefore asked to solve a specific problem as
quickly as possible - which is only possible by means of scanning.
Activity I
Imagine that your uncle who has retired wishes to settle down in Delhi.
He, along with his family, is expected to shift to Delhi in a month’s time.
He’s asked to scan the newspapers for a number of advertisements.
First of all he wishes to rent a comfortable house preferably with three
bedrooms.
Your aunt is a great lover of plants, so there should be enough space for her
plants.
Your uncle worked in the accountant general’s office. He is still very energetic
so he’d like to take up some suitable job for some time.
Your aunt doesn’t want a fulltime job; however, she wishes to take up some
tuitions, during free morning hours.
His son Sanjay has a computer degree and is looking for a suitable job.
His daughter is a journalist, a free lancer. She is also looking for a suitable
job.
Scan the following advertisements and locate the appropriate ones.
Activity 2
Indicate the advertisement against the person stated below:
1. Flat for your uncle’s family
2. Job for his son
3. Job for his daughter
4. Part time job for your aunt
5. Job for your uncle
WANTED AN EXPERIENCED LADY COMPUTER OPERATOR-CUM-
GENERAL OFFICE ASSISTANT, PERSON MUST BE FLUENT IN
ENGLISH AND ABLE TO INITIATE WORK TO COMPUTERISE THE
COMPANIES ACCOUNTING SYSTEM. GOOD WORKING
ENVIRONMENT. APPLY IN CONFIDENCE.
GHAZIABAD TOOL PVT. LTD.
FLAT NO. 110 .ASHIRWAD COMPLEX
D-1 GREEN PARK
NEW DELHI-110 016 (AD 99246)
Wanted by a reputed Pvt. Company, an expert Computer Operator. Salary
according to merit and perks. Apply with full particulars to A & A Periodical
Subscription Agency Pvt. Ltd. 191, Deepali, Pitampura, Delhi-34, Phone
7278098.
(Home Tuitions) tutors/available all localities/classes/public/convent school/
English conversations/European languages (Also wanted more tutors). Ring
(P.T.B) Puri Tutors Bureau 693077/4624631. 17
Reading Comprehension First floor drawing dining three bedrooms, second floor three bedrooms
attached bath rooms big balconies. Company/Embassy lease. Contact
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Industrial shed 50, 100 & 150 square metres with 20 H.P. 400 square metres
plot with 20 H.P. Contact Bhatia 5553346, 5592227. Kalkaji Alaknanda
Aravalli Apartments 3 bedroom flat duplex type large terrace. Company
lease/South Indian preferred. Contact 2201488.
Posh three bedroom three bathroom apartment available at N-15, Panchshila
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spacious room covered verandah kitchen bath courtyard, suits small family.
Company lease preferred. Contact site or ring telephone 6440758.
Two bedroom drawing dining modern construction, single unit, Sukhdev
Vihar, Mathura Road, 2 years company lease, foreigners only Contact
2213664.
West Punjabi Bagh 4 bedrooms duplex apartment fully furnished. Company
lease only. Phone 7129635/644519 Nair.
St. Paul’s tutor’s Bureau provide excellent tutors for convent children. Call.
F, Bob 3715114 Tutors also welcome.
1. Feature editor/writer. 2. Editorial Production Assistants. 3. Illustration
Artists (full/part time) 3. Editorial Trainees for leading Magazines Group.
Apply Post Box 515, New Delhi.
Accountants wanted. A Public Limited Co. requires Accountants capable of
making vouchers/ trial balance/reconciling bank/stock/other accounts. B.Com.
Graduates minimum salary Rs. 3000. Apply to Mr. A. Goenka Kalinda
Woollen Mills Ltd. C-542, New Friends Colony, New Delhi - 6.
Required a retired experienced accountant well versed in accounts preferably
Gujrati & South Indian. Write P. Box. 85496, Times of India, New Delhi-
2.
A leading city magazine requires journalists/trainees possessing excellent
command over English. Apply immediately New India Publications, 13-16,
Krishna Market, Off. Punchkuian Road, New Delhi-55.
Wanted full-time competent Chartered Accountant to handle accounts audit/
tax matter of leading business house at New Delhi. Age around 35.
Remuneration according to capability. Write P. Box 85133. Times of India,
New Delhi-2.
Wanted experienced tutors for XI & XII for Physics, Chemistry, Maths &
Economics. Contact B-10/7474 Vasant Kunj, New Delhi (6 to 8 p.m.).
Activity 3
The following news item was printed in a newspaper about the longest
letter in the world, which might be included in the Guiness Book of
World Records. Fill in the form given below for the publishers to include
this information in the book.
KOTTAYAM, Oct. 30 - A 27 year-old man from this city may figure in the
Guiness Book as the author of the world’s longest letter, reports UNI. The
letter is 2.4 km long, contains 100 million words, weighs 100.5 kg and cost
the author, Reagan Jones, a freight charge of Rs. 2,058 to reach it to its
18 addressee - Pope John Paul II.
Advocating world peace, the letter, artistically written with tasteful Reading Comprehension-II
colourshades on 2,985 sheets of thick J.K. card paper of width two feet four
inches, was sent to the Pontiff on his birthday on May 18. The unemployed
Jones had worked on the gargantuan letter for four years at an average of ten
hours a day.
In a recent communication to Jones, the Guiness Book of World Records
deputy editor, Sheelagh Thomas, said the letter would be considered for
inclusion in the book at Guiness’s “annual, review cycle, next spring”.
Title The Longest Letter in the World

a. Name of the Writer
b. Written to
c. Purpose of writing
d. Weight
e. Length
f. No. of sheets used
g. Language used
h. No. of words used
i. Visuals used
j. Days spent
k. No. of hours spent
l. Kind of ink used
m. Kind of paper used
n. Substance of the letter
o Date on which sent to
the addressee

2. Prepare two skimming and two scanning exercises.
.....................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................
12.4 DEVICES USED FOR TEXTUAL COHESION

We need to prepare the students in recognising the various devices used to
create textual cohesion and the use of reference and link words.
Aim: To train the students to understand relations between parts of text
through pronoun referents.
In the paragraph below, some of the pronouns have been numbered. On the
lines below the paragraph, write the word or words that each numbered
pronoun refers to. The first has been done for you. 19
Reading Comprehension The name of the largest river in the world is the Amazon. But how did this
river get its1 name? A tale exists which2 tells us that the name originated
when an early Spanish explorer of South America was attacked by Indians
who3 wore grass skirts and head dresses. Since the Indians reminded him4
of the Amazon in the Greek legends, he5 named the area after them.
This river Amazon
1. its .............................................................................................................
2. which .......................................................................................................
3. who ..........................................................................................................
4. him ..........................................................................................................
5. he .............................................................................................................

3. Prepare an exercise to train the students to understand relations
between parts of a text through pronoun referents.
...........................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................
12.5 FUNCTIONS OF A TEXT

It is obvious that being aware of the function of a passage is important to
comprehend it. So the students should be trained to find out whether the text
aims at convincing the reader, giving information or asking for something.
Match the following passages with their function. There could be more than
one passage for a function. Write the function against the passage.
Function Passage No.
Warning _____________________
Giving information _____________________
Giving instructions _____________________
Invitation _____________________
Giving advice _____________________
Entertaining _____________________
Passages _____________________
1. Angry mob sets two DTC buses on fire

From Our Staff Reporter
New Delhi, March 18. An angry mob set on fire two DTC buses after
a 40-year old man was crushed to death under the wheels of one in
Janakpuri here late on Saturday night.
2. Don’t allow children to play Holi on roofs and parapets, cautions a
neurosurgeon at the Mool Chand Hospital.
3. In the past two days, the hospital has had a number of children brought
with head injuries, all caused by falling from roof-tops while playing
with water-balloons, Dr. Ravi Bhatia, the neurosurgeon, warns against
20 these.
4. If a child falls from a height and is injured, make him or her lie on the Reading Comprehension-II
side. The mouth should be cleared of food or blood so that the air
passage can be maintained. Rush him/ her to the nearest medical centre,
with the head in a low position. 5. Adults are advised not to drive after
consuming bhang or alcohol.
5. Curbs on Holi
By A Staff Reporter
6. New Delhi; March 14 : The city police have announced certain measures
to preempt “riotous, indecent and disorderly behaviour” during Holi.
They will come in force from tomorrow for a period of 10 days.
7. The police have warned that throwing of coloured water or rubber
balloons and application of “gulal” on unwilling persons will invite
prosecution. So will any indecent behaviour or language.
8. Pushing or obstruction of persons in any public place and “violent
movements, menacing gestures or shouting” which disturb the public
order are prohibited.
9. The police have also banned the sale of rubber balloons of two inches
or less when not inflated.
10. Gajjar Halwa
Ingredients
1 kg red carrot
1 litre milk
200 gm sugar. Dry fruits for garnishing. Grate until soft. Mix in the sugar
and boil the mixture till the milk dries up. Add ghee and stir for a few
minutes. Finally add dry fruits.
11. THE INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF

INDIA
Cordially invites all members of the public for a Lecture and Audio-
Visual presentation on
UNION BUDGET
(with special reference to current Economic Developments and
their Impact on Capital Markets)
by
* Shri N. J. Yasaswy, Member, Board of Governors, ICFAI
* Shri G. Ramachandran, Advisor, ICFAI at the following venue
and date
Venue : FICCI
Barakhamba Road,
Near Connaught Place
New Delhi-110001
Date & Time: March 19, 20xx at 6.00 p.m.
21
Reading Comprehension 12. The Weather
Rain or thundershowers are likely to occur at one or two places in Andaman
and Nicobar Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya, Sub-
Himalayan, West Bengal and Sikkim, plains of West Uttar Pradesh, Haryana,
Punjab, West Madhya Pradesh, Madhya Maharashtra, Marathawada and
coastal Andhra Pradesh. Weather will be mainly dry over the rest of the
country.
Temperature
City Max. Min.
Abu 25 10
Ahmadabad 34 18
Bangalore 33 19
Bhopal 32 18
Bhubaneswar 35 22
Bombay 30 22

4. Collect five/six different types of texts and prepare a similar exercise.
...........................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................
12.6 ORGANISATION OF THE TEXT

This refers to the method of presentation of information in any passage.
These could be in the form of
 Main idea and supporting details

 Sequence
 Comparisons
 Logical Sequence
Let’s look at some examples:

Aim: To train the students to make an outline of the given passage with
main ideas and their supporting details.
Whales
When you are outlining an article, you will often want to include the details
that are given about some of the sub-topics. As you read the article below,
decide what its main topics, sub-topics, and details are. Then complete the
outline by using the items listed at the bottom of the page.
Whales are the largest animals the world has ever known. They are found
in every major ocean, and although they resemble huge fish, they are really
22 mammals. One important way whales differ from fish is in their body
temperature. They are warm blooded, so their temperature remains constant Reading Comprehension-II
despite the surrounding climate. Extra protection is provided by blubber, a
thick layer of fat that keeps them warm even in the coldest water. Whales
also differ from fish in their manner of breathing. Equipped with lungs
instead of gills, they are forced to hold their breath while underwater. When
a whale’s supply of fresh air runs out, it must surface to breathe otherwise
it would drown. Another difference that sets whales apart from fish is the
way they treat their young. Babies are born alive and are nursed on their
mother’s milk until they are old enough to feed themselves.
For centuries man has hunted whales for a variety of profitable reasons.
Although whale products are not as sought - after today, they are still used
throughout the world. Whale oil goes into making margarine in many
European countries, and it is often found in various kinds of explosives.
Some laundry soaps still contain whale oil. The meat of a whale is not as
widely valued as the oil, but many manufactures use it in canned dog and
cat food. Whale meat is even eaten by human beings in such countries as
Norway and Japan.
A. How do whales differ from fish.
2. ........................................................................................................
B. Breathing
1 ........................................................................................................
2. ........................................................................................................
C. Sub-titles
1 ........................................................................................................
2. ........................................................................................................
Whale products
A. Sub-titles
1 ........................................................................................................
2. ........................................................................................................
B. Sub-titles
1 ........................................................................................................
2. ........................................................................................................
Margarine Breathing Explosives

Whale products Lungs Warm-blooded How whales differ from fish
instead of gills Treatment of young Whale meat
Protected by blubber Whale oil Must surface to breathe
Food for animals Food for humans Laundry soaps
Babies born alive Body temperature Young drink mother’s milk ........
Aim: To train the students to write in a sequence. Here are the steps for
a game called ‘Pattern Puzzle’. The steps are in jumbled order. Unscramble
them and list them in proper order.
a) There is a time limit, say five minutes.
b) Give each group a card with a letter pattern.
c) The letter pattern should be the same. 23
Reading Comprehension d) The group with most words is the winner.
e) No letter should be used more than once in any word.
f) The players each write down on paper all the words they can think of,
containing some or all of these letters.
g) The middle letter e.g. E must appear in each word.
(T) (I)
(E)
(S) (N)
Aim: To train the students to understand comparisons/contrasts used in

the text.
Aim: to train the students to understand the logical relationship within
a passage. Read the following sentences and rearrange them so as to form
a coherent passage.
1. He had gone to the December 1916 annual convention of the Indian
National Congress party in Lucknow.
2. I am from Champaran, and I want you to come to my district’!”
3. When I first visited Gandhi in 1942 at his ashram in Sevagram, in
central India, he said, “I will tell you how it happened that I decided to
urge the departure of the British. It was in 1917.”
4. Gandhi had never heard of the place. It was in the foothills of the
towering Himalayas, near the kingdom of Nepal. Under an ancient
arrangement, the Champaran peasants were sharecroppers.
5. There were 2,301 delegates and many visitors. During the proceedings,
Gandhi recounted, “a peasant came up to me looking like any other
peasant in India, poor and emaciated, and said, ‘I am Rajkumar Shukia.
6. For weeks he never left Gandhi’s side. “Fix a date,” he begged.
7. Rajkumar Shukia was one of them.
8. Gandhi told Shukia he had an appointment in Cawnpore and was also
committed to go to other parts of India. Shukia accompanied him
everywhere. Then Gandhi returned to his ashram near Ahmedabad.
9. Impressed by the sharecropper’s tenacity and story Gandhi said, “I have
to be in Calcutta on such-and-such a date. Come and meet me and take
me from there.”
10. Shukla followed him to the ashram.
11. He was illiterate but resolute. He had come to the Congress session to
complain about the injustice of the landlord system in Bihar, and
somebody had probably said, “Speak to Gandhi.”
Aim: to train students to understand comparisons
Compare the piece from the text (on the left below) with the other piece on
Goan bakers (on the right). What makes the two texts so different? Are the
24 facts the same? Do both writers give you a picture of the baker?
1. Our elders are often heard reminiscing nostalgically about those good Reading Comprehension-II
old Portuguese days, the Portuguese and their famous loaves of bread.
Those eaters of loaves might have vanished but the makers are still
there. We still have amongst us the mixers, the moulders and those who
bake the loaves. Those age-old, time-tested furnaces still exist. The fire
in the furnaces had not yet been extinguished. The thud and the jingle
of the traditional baker’s bamboo, heralding his arrival in the morning,
can still be heard in some places. May be the father is not alive but the
son still carries on the family profession.
2. Portuguese bread vanished with the paders. But the paders have managed
to survive because they have perfected the art of door-to door delivery
service. The paders pick up the knowledge of bread making from
traditions in the family. The leavened, oven-baked bread is a gift of the
Portuguese to India. [Adapted from Nandakumar Kamat’s ‘The Unsung
Lives of Goan Paders’]

5. Why do you think it is important for the students to understand how
a text is organised?
...........................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................
...........................................................................................................
12.7 LET US SUM UP

In this unit we have discussed various types of reading comprehension
exercises which you may use or adapt in your classroom. We once again
state that the level of difficulty of the text is not important, the exercise
types can be adapted for different levels. Do try some of these activities -
it will make reading comprehension a more interesting and enjoyable
experience for your students.
12.8 KEY WORDS

Skimming: Reading the text quickly for main idea.
Scanning: Reading to locate specific information.
Textual cohesion: The use of pronouns, conjunctions, or synonyms
to establish relationship between sentences and
paragraph.
Organisation of the text: The method of presentation of information in any
passage.
12.9 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

1. Open ended
2. Open ended
3. Open ended
25
4. Open ended
Reading Comprehension 5. Understanding is better if the organisation of the text is clear to the
learner e.g. in an article with headings and sub-points, the students can
arrange and try to follow the text in those terms. In a narrative or set
of instructions the sequence/order in which things happened or are to be
done is important. When the learner knows that these are instructions,
he/she would look for the sequence in which to proceed. Similarly,
when the students are handling a text written to compare and contrast
two or more things, they would start arranging the points in their own
minds or in an exercise as similarities and differences.
12.10 UGGESTED READINGS

Alderson, C. & Urquhart, A.H. (ed.), (1984): Reading in a Foreign Language,
Longman, London.
Chall, J.S. (1983): Stages of Reading Development, McGraw-Hill Book
Company, New York.
26
UNIT 13 TEACHING LITERARY TEXTS-I
Structure
13.1 Objectives
13.2 Introduction
13.3 Literature and Language Acquisition
13.4 Teaching Prose
13.5 Teaching Fiction
13.6 Teaching Drama
13.7 Let Us Sum Up
13.8 References and Suggested Reading
13.9 Answers
13.1 OBJECTIVES
After going through this Unit, you should be able to:
 understand and appreciate the role of literature in second language
acquisition;
 appreciate the unique features of the different types of literary texts;
 plan teaching-learning strategies keeping in mind the uniqueness of
each type of literary text; and
 develop language skills in your learners through the teaching of literary
texts.
13.2 INTRODUCTION
Whenever a syllabus for teaching language is made, literary texts are generally
included in it. For many centuries, literature has been regarded as the best
or highest form of language, and has great prestige. For instance, in the
history of English language teaching in India, English literature was taken
as the very basis of education in English, and is still quite important. We
need to ask the question: Why is literature considered to be such an important
aspect of teaching and learning a language? Firstly, it provides interest and
motivation for learning. Telling a story, reading a story or poem which has
actions, characters and dialogues , is very interesting for learners and they
become involved in the process of learning a language without having to pay
constant attention to its rules, or doing dull grammar exercises. In this unit,
our aim is to understand how we may approach the teaching of literature, as
it is an important element in the teaching of language. We will consider the
different kinds of literary texts and see if we can adopt ways of teaching
them effectively. Prose, fiction and drama may require different approaches;
therefore our aim is to explore the means of reading and appreciating each
type of literary text.1 27
13.3 LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
Literature provides many examples of the use of language in different
situations. Indirectly, literary texts offer items of new vocabulary and new
structures of sentences and phrases which, as they are used in context, give
the learners valuable knowledge of the use of these words and sentences.
Further, literature provides a context for communicative activities like
discussion, speaking, role-playing and other types of interaction between
learners. The literary text becomes the basis for many such activities and
exercises. Most importantly, it is the practice of reading skill in the reading
of literature that leads to the achievement of better levels of reading
comprehension. This in turn enables learners to read many other kinds of
texts and acquire knowledge of other subjects. We know that reading a
literary text is also a cognitive challenge – a kind of problem solving activity.
The reader has to decode its layers of meaning, which involves thinking
critically. Moreover, if this is linked with practice in writing, it further
develops writing skills, as well as the skill of editing. Apart from all the
above purposes, literature is a part of our cultural awareness and develops
our aesthetic sense, our enjoyment of that which is beautiful, pleasing as
well as that which helps us to understand life, human beings and society. As
Collie and Slater (1987) put it: ‘Literature provides a rich context in which
individual lexical or syntactic forms are made more memorable. Reading a
contextualized body of text, students gain familiarity with many features of
written language – the formation and function of sentences, the variety of
possible structures, the different ways of connecting ideas – which broaden
and enrich their own writing skill. The extensive reading of a play or novel
develops the students’ ability to make inference from linguistic clues, and to
deduce meaning from context…a literary text can serve as an excellent
prompt for oral work…’
To sum up, the following are the benefits of teaching literature as part of
language teaching, as given by Collie and Slater (1987):
 It provides valuable authentic material.
 It contributes to language enrichment.
 It contributes to cultural enrichment.
 It fosters personal involvement and motivation in learning.
It is clear, therefore, that the teaching of literature is an essential component
of any syllabus and its purpose should be well understood by English teachers.
However, many of these objectives will not be fulfilled if the appropriate
teaching methodology is not used. Our methodology of teaching must include
ways of making the learners read the literature, talk about it and share their
ideas, write about it, and participate in the learning and enjoyment of it.
Literature is a form of communication, and also a part of our shared culture,
and this is why we study it in the curriculum. For example, if a teacher
spends most of the time explaining the text, then the time for the other
activities, such as discussion, reading independently and finding out the
meaning, etc., will be reduced and this would not serve the various purposes
28 we have in mind when we put literature in the curriculum.
In addition to adopting the kinds of methodologies which are best suited to Teaching Literary Texts-I
our purpose, we also need to take great care in the selection of the kind of
literature we choose to include in our curriculum. The level of the learners
in terms of the stage of language development that they are in, is the most
crucial consideration. If we try to teach a very complex literary text, and the
learners do not yet have the language ability to comprehend it, they will
neither enjoy it, nor will they find it interesting to explore it further or
discuss it. Therefore, the choice of the right kinds of literature is essential
for the teaching of literature. In making this choice, we have to consider
various kinds of difficulty: the language may be difficult, or the themes or
structures may be complex and learners may not be able to deal with them.
In this regard, we cannot say that ancient texts are necessarily difficult and
modern ones are easier, because there is often a lot of complexity in modern
writing. At the same time, literature from an older time has language which
is not used in the present day, and may be difficult for young learners to
understand. The length of a piece – whether a poem, short story or prose
writing – is another factor to be considered, as longer texts may become
tedious for young children and may not hold their attention. These points
emphasise the need to take great care of the choice of texts for children,
particularly at the primary school level. There is also a strong case for
introducing writing tasks as part of the reading of literature so that students
can learn to express their own responses, articulate their feelings and opinions
and share their perceptions, which is a crucial outcome of the study of
literature.
Types of texts: Prose, Fiction and Drama
Each type of text has its own unique features. The teacher needs to understand
the nature of each kind of text as a first step towards the construction of
certain useful activities and approaches to be used in the class. In this unit,
we will look at types of texts usually written in prose – for instance, essays,
stories and plays. In the case of prose (non-fiction), there are some facts,
ideas or information being presented. Stories have a structure of events and
characters. Drama has dialogues between characters and actions. Since
these are all different types of literature, they offer different kinds of challenge
and reading experience for the language learner, at linguistic, communicative,
and cognitive levels. The different genres can be taught separately, or mixed
up. It may be useful to organize literature according to themes, and present
a unit on each theme e.g. ‘Friendship’, ‘War’, ‘Journeys’ etc., and each unit
may include a poem, a story and a prose passage on that theme. This will
sensitise readers to reading different kinds of texts and how a particular
topic can be looked at – how a ‘poetical’ treatment is unique in its own way,
how a story reveals so many dimensions, and how, in prose, a writer tries
to explain or analyse the subject. All these perspectives are enriching for the
young learners.
13.4 TEACHING PROSE

Often, prose writing is considered to be less interesting than poems or stories.
So teachers are faced with the task of motivating the children to read prose,
which usually has some information or facts in it. While poetry may have
more delight, prose is useful in learning about facts and opinions as it is
more message-oriented. Reading prose is a good exercise in understanding 29
Reading Comprehension how sentences of different kinds are constructed, and how they are organized
to convey ideas. In addition, prose also has its own pleasures – there is
‘prose rhythm’ which we can appreciate when we read a piece of prose
aloud.
For effective teaching of prose, a well-structured and short piece of prose
writing should be chosen. Let us consider the following example:
The Olympic Games are among the most prominent international sporting
events. They are a highly respected event in which nations put their best
talents forward, in a spirit of friendliness and healthy competition. The
word ‘Olympic’ comes from the word ‘Olympia’ – a place in Greece. Centuries
ago, festivals and religious ceremonies were held there in honour of the
Greek god Zeus. The ceremonies included games, held every four years, in
the summer, around mid-July. Today, the Games are held in different cities
of the world every four years, and bring together athletes from all over the
world. They are held to promote the development of physical and moral
qualities through amateur sports.
The above passage is a little over 100 words, and similar passages up to 200
words can be chosen at the elementary level, while the length of a passage
can be longer for intermediate level students. This reduces the linguistic
challenge, as the text does not appear so formidable as to deter or demotivate
the learner.
The first part of the lesson can be that of giving instructions to the children:
 Underline keywords – or -most important words in the passage.
 Underline the words in the passage which are new to you.
The first benefit of this preliminary exercise is that it encourages children
to read through the passage and scan it for important words, and unfamiliar
words. This also has two other benefits: the teacher does not explain the
words in the beginning. This allows the children a chance to read on their
own, and the teacher can assess their level of vocabulary. Then the teacher
can give the meaning or the gloss of the words which the children themselves
pointed out, instead of assuming that each and every word has to be explained.
We must remember that even if a lot of words in the passage are not clear
or known to a child, at least a few are known, and the child can fit in the
unknown into the known, if encouraged to do so. A few words e.g. ‘amateur’
can be explained.
The keywords lead us to the topic of the passage. What is it about? A title
can be discussed, with inputs from both the teacher and students. The
teacher can ask some more questions e.g. ‘What is Olympia?’, ‘What are the
Olympics?’, ‘Who takes part in the Olympics?’, ‘Why are Olympic games
held?’ etc. and ask the students to search the text for the answers. Exercises
such as completing the sentence, filling blanks e.g. ‘friendly and ________’,
‘physical and _______’, etc. are useful. The benefit of this, apart from
language practice is that the learner will have to search the passage for the
information, and will read it again and again. This is our main aim, as the
30 more they read, the more they will appreciate the qualities of the text.
Next, there can be a discussion on sports – favourite sports, last Olympics, Teaching Literary Texts-I
great sportspersons etc. There can also be a G.K. quiz about sports. After
this, the learners can turn to the passage again to study some of the language
e.g. how the past and present is described (the use of was held, were held
as opposed to are held ); the sentences which are active or passive, (e.g.
are held is passive, while bring together is active, but both occur in the
same sentence!) etc. The students become familiar with different types of
sentences and the way in which the writer may combine them. For instance,
the teacher must draw attention to the connectors between sentences which
links in the passage e.g. ‘As a result…’ ‘First of all’, Secondly, ‘At the same
time…’, ‘However’, ‘The chief aim is to show’, ‘On the contrary’ etc .
These show whether the ideas are being added together, or some opposite
ideas are being given. It tells us a lot about how our thoughts and ideas can
be composed. So it is clear that the teaching of prose can serve several
aims.
The teacher must have a knowledge of different types of prose writing.
Prose is of several types: expository ( it explains, as in certain scientific and
informative topics), argumentative ( it gives opinions, on different issues or
problems), descriptive (it gives descriptions), and narrative (narrates events).
The writer’s personality and point of view is often clearly evident in prose
writing, and this makes up the style of a particular prose work. Particularly,
a prose passage in which the first person ‘I’ is used shows the writer’s point
of view more directly. A prose writer may also address the reader directly,
using second person. In some cases a writer may use ‘we’ in a general sense
while explaining something, thus making the reader share his/her point of
view. Sometimes, a prose writer may treat a subject very seriously, or may
use satire or humour. He/she may also makes use of images and comparisons.
It is usual for prose writers to explain a general point and then give examples,
but in some cases writers start with presenting particular examples, and then
give a general conclusion.
Let us look at some examples of prose sentences which illustrate the use
of different prose styles:
Long, complex sentence, which may need to be broken up into parts e.g.
‘I have brought philosophy out of closets and libraries, schools and colleges,
to dwell in clubs and assemblies, at tea-tables and coffee houses.’ (Joseph
Addison)
Short, epigrammatic sentences: Reading maketh a full man, writing an
exact man and conference a ready man’ (Bacon).
Repetitive, or Biblical style: ‘Love suffreth all things, believeth all things,
endureth all things’.
Use of similies and metaphors: ‘his voice rose like a gale’, ‘the hand of
death pressed on his eyelids’ etc.
Humourous style: ‘I am, I confess, a devotee of pockets. When I go to a
tailor, and he asks me what pockets I want, I tell him: all of them. If you
have enough pockets, you seldom lose anything…’ (Robert Lynd)
Similarly, teachers can take up examples from some quotations from other
great prose writers, such as Charles Lamb, Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw. 31
Reading Comprehension These are interesting, witty, and thought-provoking. Even the tradition of
‘thought for the day’ which is often used in our schools can be used to take
up more such examples and discussed in the classroom. It develops both the
capacity for thought as well as sensitivity towards language. Perhaps children
may not be told explicitly about all these different styles, but the teachers
need to be aware of such variations and gradually make the learners familiar
with them.

1. List the reasons for teaching of literature as part of the language
teaching curriculum.
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2. Consider the following prose passage and write some exercises for
use in teaching this passage:
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The Ganga, especially, is the river of India, beloved of her people,
of triumph, her victories and her defeats. She has been a symbol of
India’s age long culture and civilization, ever-changing, ever-flowing,
and yet ever the same Ganga.
She reminds me of the snow covered peaks and the deep valleys of
the Himalayas, which I have loved so much, and of the rich and
vast plains, where my life and work has been cast. Smiling and
dancing in the morning sunlight, and dark and gloomy and full of
mystery as the evening shadows fall, a slow and graceful stream in
winter, and a vast roaring thing during the monsoon, broad-bosomed
as the sea, and with something of the sea’s power to destroy, the
Ganga has been to me a symbol and a memory of the part of India,
running into the present, and flowing on to the great ocean of the
future.
Jawaharlal Nehru, My Last Will and Testament
Exercise 1
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Exercise 2
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32
Teaching Literary Texts-I
13.5 TEACHING FICTION
Stories are fascinating for children, and they don’t need much encouragement
to be involved in reading stories. However, in India, we have strong traditions
of oral story-telling, and children may like to listen rather than read. Today,
we also have visual media, such as television. Therefore, there is a real
concern regarding the development of reading habits. It is often only in the
environment of the classroom that children’s interest in reading can be
developed. Therefore, the first objective in teaching fiction may be that of
encouraging the children to read. Teachers often mistake the teaching of
fiction as explaining or recounting the story to children, but this is a re-
telling, which is bound to be different from the story itself. The teacher may
re-tell the story, or ask the children to tell it in their own words, but this can
happen only after they have read it, therefore developing their motivation for
reading and reading skills is the first priority.
The correct choice of stories is important as regards their length and their
themes. Stories read by children in elementary school are usually short
narratives of various kinds. While some stories, like fables, have a clear
moral in them, other stories may be purely about adventure, or everyday life.
Some stories have a surprise element in the end, a ‘sting in the tail’. For
teachers, it is important to appreciate these variations in story-telling. The
Russian theorists of narrative make a distinction between the story itself i.e.
the bare plot of the events, and the way it is told. The first one is called
fabula (story) and the second one is calleds juzet (discourse). We can
understand this as follows:
Story: Events are described in sequence: event A – event B – event C –
event D…. etc.
Discourse: The sequence of events can be rearranged when narrating them,
as for example: event C – event B – event A – event D, or any other
combination. It may be noticed that the narrator puts in some information
that does not occur in everyday speech, e.g. ‘he said, looking a little ashamed’,
‘she spoke with some hesitation’ adds something extra - some additional
language and meaning to the character’s speech (which indicates the discourse,
or the particular manner of telling). We need to be alert to such indications
in a fictional text as they tell us a lot about the point of view from which
the story is told.
Accordingly, a teacher may decide what method is to be adopted for teaching.
The discourse in some stories may focus more on description of characters,
or a scene, or build an atmosphere. In this case, we need to pay more
attention to the language - there may be some striking vocabulary or phrases,
some vivid description that can be a pretext for introducing more words to
the students. On the other hand, some stories may be very simple as far as
the use of language is concerned, but may have some thought, or puzzle, in
them, which is a challenge for learners to comprehend. For example, the
stories of Mulla Nasruddin, or Akbar-Birbal stories are short, but have some
insight or knowledge that the child reader will enjoy discovering by himself
or herself, rather than having the teacher explain it. Another example is the
‘Stone Soup’ story. This is a short version of the hearing story:
33
Reading Comprehension One day, a traveler reached a house, tired from walking for many hours. He
was very hungry. He knocked on the door and asked the lady of the house
for some food. She refused, saying she did not have any food in the house.
The traveler took a stone out of his bag and said: ‘I have this stone. If you
will put some water to boil, I will make soup with this stone.’ The lady put
some water to boil in a pot.
He put the stone in the pot, and when the water began to boil, he said: ‘Ah,
now it only needs some salt’. The lady gave him some salt. He stirred the
water and said, ‘it’s tasty. It will be better if some pieces of carrots and
onions are put in. Do you have some spare?’ She brought some pieces of
carrots, potatoes and onions and he added them to the water. Then he said,
‘perhaps you have some scraps of meat?’ She had some odd scraps which
she gave him. He put those too into the pot. Soon the soup was ready, and
he tasted it. ‘It’s perfect!’ And he ate the stone soup and satisfied his
hunger.
A story like this can be read aloud and the students can be asked: ‘What
have you understood from this story?’ This may encourage them to make
inferences about the story, and they may discuss it more. Therefore, different
techniques for teaching fiction are to be used depending upon the degree of
language complexity, or cognitive challenge. At one level, reading and
comprehending the facts of the story, at another level, making inferences
regarding the events and characters, fitting these into a framework of
understanding, are to be given attention. These aspects are discussed below:
a. Focus on language of description of character and place.
The students may be directed to skim the story and see which character
is most prominent. They may then read the sentence in which that
character is first mentioned. Sometimes the name of the character is
not given initially, but there may be a description or some account of
the character’s background. Are there any particular adjectives, or similies
used for that character? Can we see from these facts if the story- teller
has a particular attitude towards the character – for example, sympathy,
dislike, etc?
Let us take the example of Khushwant Singh’s well known story ‘Portrait
of a Lady’. The story begins with the following description:
She had always been short and fat and slightly bent. Her face was a criss-
cross of wrinkles from everywhere to everywhere. No, we were certain she
had always been as we had known her. Old, so terribly old that she could
not have grown older. She could never have been pretty, but she was always
beautiful. She hobbled about the house in spotless white with one hand
resting on her waist to balance her stoop and the other telling the beads of
her rosary. Her silver locks were scattered untidily over her pale, puckered
face, and her lips moved constantly in inaudible prayer. Yes, she was beautiful.
She was like the winter landscape in the mountains, an expanse of pure
white serenity, breathing peace and contentment.
The description of character in the story can be classified under the following
heads: what the character is compared to, what the character does in daily
life, what the character looks like, etc. The activities on this could be:
34
a) Underline the adjectives (e.g. short, fat, slightly bent, old, not pretty, Teaching Literary Texts-I
beautiful). Which of these are positive? Which adjective is the most
important in the description?
b) What did she do? The activities she did most often were_______.
Read the story further to see what are the other actions of the grandmother
and what these tell us about her.
c) What is she compared to? Why? (Further questions: Are the mountains
young or old? What is the colour of mountains in winter? These
questions will lead to students understanding the basis of the comparison
of the old lady to the mountains)
d) Let us find synonyms for these words: stoop, puckered, inaudible, serenity
e) Which sentence(s) indicate the presence of a narrator?
Students can then be asked to put these facts together. They may even
discuss which feature of the character’s description is the most vital and
significant in its relevance for the story – is it the character’s physical
appearance or other qualities which are most crucial for the story?
Similarly, the teacher can ask the students to read a story and notice the
description of a house, village or city, or landscape. What is important in
this description? Is it some detail, such as that of a marketplace, or decoration
of a room, that may be important for the meaning of the story? It may also
be useful to look at repetition – which items in the landscape are mentioned
again and again – for instance, the description of a river may recur, thus
making it significant. Names of places, or people are particularly important
as they may indicate some mythological or cultural aspects hidden in the
story.
b. Focus on theme
The beginning and ending of a story is always worth considering very
carefully. Some stories may start right from the birth of a character, or from
a historical event, and even mention the dates. Some stories may start in the
middle of an event, e.g. a war, or a journey, and then go back to where it
began. Why does a story-teller start a story at a particular point? The
students can treat this as a puzzle which they have to uncover – and different
students will give different reasons. The teacher must allow this kind of
questioning and sharing of possible answers, as this is an important mental
exercise.
The endings of stories can also be discussed – why does the story end at a
particular point? The class can be divided into readers who are satisfied
with the ending and readers who are not satisfied. Each of them can explain
the reasons for their response. Students may be asked to give their own
ending to the story. This may be done orally, so that it can be part of the
discussion, where other children can ask each other why they chose a particular
ending. Or students can be asked to write an ending, and the teacher can
help them with some of the language they need for this purpose. One story
which can be mentioned in this regard is Mulk Raj Anand’s ‘The Lost
Child’. In the end of the story, we do not know whether the child finds its
parents or not – would children see this as a satisfactory ending?
35
Reading Comprehension ‘Sting in the Tale’ stories will have a sharp shock or surprise at the end, or
a sudden revelation, which may bring in some realization for the reader, e.g.
Guy De Maupassant’s ‘The Diamond Necklace’, O.Henry’s ‘The Gift of the
Magi’ etc.
Some other activities that can be done in teaching fiction in the class
are:
Suggestion consists of the teacher planting some thought, suggesting
some idea (even if it seems wrong) and asking the students to read the
story to check if the suggestion is correct or not.
Prediction can be made, after reading the first paragraph or section of
a story, to encourage readers to predict what happens next, or to predict
something about the character, and to read further to see if this prediction
will come true. We know that literature builds up our expectations, so
the game of prediction will lead to some surprises, and will become
interesting, while it also encourages the exploring of creative
possibilities.
Visualization, or the making of pictures, either word pictures, or
diagrams/sketches about a place, or a person, will be useful in making
the situation real for the students.
Rewriting the story, giving a jumbled order of events to be rearranged
or gap-filling, rewriting the end of the story, or imagining and giving
some more details about a particular character can all be helpful pretexts
for using more language, such as activating the use of more vocabulary.
Summary writing, making thought bubbles, as if making a comic
strip, or a ‘mini saga’ (in which the students are required to sum up
the whole story in 50 words), can be challenging activities.
Finally, the challenge of teaching fiction is that all the aims are to be
fulfilled without destroying the enjoyment of a good story. Our aim is
to make literature more interesting and enriching for our students.

Here is a short story. What kind of activities can be done in the teaching
of this story?
Stan Murch, in a uniform-like blue jacket, stood on the sidewalk in
front of the Hilton and watched cab after cab make the loop into the
main entrance. Doesn’t anybody drive their own car anymore? Then at
last a Chrysler Imperial came hesitantly up the avenue, turned into the
driveway and stopped at the entrance. As a woman and several children
got out of the right of the car, the driver climbed heavily out on the left.
He was a big man with a cigar and a camel hair coat.
Murch was at the door before it was half way open, pulling it the rest
of the way and saying, ‘Just leave the keys in, sir’.
‘Right’, said the man with the cigar. He got out, and, just as Murch was
about to get behind the wheel, he said: ‘Wait’.
Murch looked at him, ‘Sir?’
‘Here you go, boy’ the man said and pulled a folded dollar bill from his
36 pants pocket and handed it across.
Teaching Literary Texts-I
‘Thank you, sir.’ Murch said. He saluted with the hand holding the
dollar, climbed behind the wheel, and drove away. He was smiling as
he made the right turn out on the street. It wasn’t everyday a man gave
you a tip for stealing his car.
Activities:
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13.6 TEACHING DRAMA

The teaching of drama in the classroom is most challenging, as drama is
primarily speech in action, or dialogue. It can be treated as a story in some
ways, but the manner of the unfolding of the action is different. There is no
narrative voice, but the characters speak and interact. The study of how
characters think and behave is central to drama. Conflict of some kind or
another is central to drama. There is a plot, and as it unfolds, the situation
brings some conflict and change in the characters.
Drama is also closest to human communicative interaction. It can be of use
in language teaching to show how dialogues are spoken and how
communication takes place.
Activities in the teaching of drama can be:
a) Written
Filling in blanks in dialogues, or writing more dialogues to add to the existing
ones can be activities that students at a slightly more advanced level can do.
Making tables with different points of view on each side, however, can be
done by students who have less language proficiency – they can read each
character’s speech and assign a position for each character on one or the
other side of the table, to show that they belong to opposing sides in a
conflict.
Prediction: Could the conversation exchange or dialogue be rewritten in
a different way?
Exploring relationships between characters: Who are the friends? Who are
opposites, who are similar to each other? Comparisons and contrasts between
characters can be made. For example, take the following exchange:
Cratchit: Er, pardon me, Mr Scrooge, but there’s a gentleman to
see you.
Scrooge: What about, Cratchit?
Cratchit: He didn’t say, sir.
Gentleman: Ah, good afternoon, sir. Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr
Scrooge or Mr Marley?
Scrooge: Mr Marley, my former partner, has been dead these seven years. He
died seven years ago this very night. 37
Reading Comprehension Gentleman: Then I have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his
surviving partner.
Scrooge: What do you want?
Gentleman: At this festive season, Mr Scrooge, we try to make some slight
provision for the poor and destitute. Many thousands are in want of common
necessities.
Scrooge: Are there no prisons?
Gentleman: Oh, plenty of prisons.
Scrooge: And the workhouses? Are they still in operation?
Gentleman: I wish I could say they were not. How much shall I put you
down for, Mr Scrooge?
Scrooge: Nothing.
Gentleman: Nothing?
Scrooge: Exactly. Let these deserving people of yours go to the establishments
I have mentioned.
Gentleman: Most of them would rather die than do that.
Scrooge: Then let them do that and help decrease the surplus population.
I’m busy. Good afternoon to you.
Gentleman: Very good, Mr Scrooge. A very Merry Christmas to you!
Goes out.
Scrooge: Charity! Pah! Humbug!
(adapted from Charles Dickens’ novel A Christmas Carol, extracted from
CBSE Interact in English, Literature Reader)
Even in such a short extract, there are several possibilities for writing
activities. The students can be asked to define Scrooge’s character, or write
about the situation- what is the occasion, what happens on such an occasion,
and whether the expected response is given or not, and the reason why it is
not. Since Scrooge refuses to give charity on Christmas, this is a sign of his
character. From this we see simply that character and action are linked in
this play. Once the students become aware of this, they can write a good
summary or description of the plot or character.
Themes: The movement of the plot can be traced by making a diagram of
the plot. This can be put up in the form of a chart, as a summary. Some
of the activities used in teaching fiction could also be useful in drama, as
drama has a narrative aspect. Endings, for instance, are important in drama,
as in stories. The activities can be based on recreation of some scenes or
dialogues in a play, which may change the direction of the plot.
There is also opportunity for vocabulary practice in drama e.g. in the above
extract, we can find out the opposites of words as: ‘the opposite of liberality
is_________’, ‘the opposite of destitute is_________’ etc. Using more
vocabulary, the students can attempt to write a piece on the condition of
poor people, or what should be done for the poor and needy especially, on
38 festivals.
b) Oral Teaching Literary Texts-I
Oral activities such as loud reading of extracts, with gestures, will be of use
in practice of spoken language at different levels: emphasis, tone and
pronunciation. Conversations can be developed from the play, as in the
extract above, the students can enact another imaginary conversation with
Scrooge. One student would speak as Scrooge, and another would persuade
him to donate something for poor people.
We can build on other kinds of opportunities that this extract provides.
Normally, we exchange greetings on meeting someone and say something
when we take leave at the end of a conversation. We also have ways of
greeting people on festive occasions. Students can make a list of different
kinds of greetings and leave-takings for different occasions, formal and
informal. They can also discuss whether this is a modern way of speaking,
and how our spoken interaction today can be very different.
It would be useful for students to enact a play, or prepare and present a play
in order to understand the kind of interaction which takes place in drama.
13.7 LET US SUM UP

In this unit, we have tried to understand the importance of teaching literature
and the manner in which we can approach the teaching of different forms
of literature in the classroom. Each type of writing poses a challenge and
we have to be quite creative in thinking about ways to make literature both
interesting and useful in the context of language learning. Prose texts can
be used for studying ways in which information and arguments are presented;
fiction can be used for studying how stories are told and how they are
understood, how characters are presented; and drama combines character
and action in a constant play of the language of dialogue. In all these
instances, the choice of words and arrangement of sentences and the building
of connections in the text are aspects of language use that learners can
benefit from studying. The literary text is a vast and enriching field for the
language learner.
13.8 REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READING

It will be useful to introduce students to the short stories of many great
writers, both Indian and those from other countries, such as Rabindranath
Tagore, Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Rudyard Kipling and many others.
Many other useful collections and anthologies are suggested in Collie and
Slater, referred to below.
Brumfit, Christopher and Carter, Ronald, ed. Language and Literature
Teaching, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1986
Collie, Joanne and Slater, Stephen Literature in the Language Classroom,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Grellet, F. Developing Reading Skills, Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Moody, H.L. The Teaching of Literature, Longman, 1971.
39
Reading Comprehension Sanger, Keith The Language of Fiction London, Routledge, 1998.
Simpson, Paul, Language Through Literature, London, Routledge, 1997.
Widdowson, H. Stylistics and the Teaching of literature, Longman, 1975.
13.9 ANSWERS
Test your understanding-I
a. Read the relevant section (13.3) for answering this question.
b. Some suggestions for activities are:
You could start with a question about the length of the sentences. Students
can count the words in each sentence (they like to do that) and see how long
they are. Then we can discuss why a particular sentence is long – what bits
of information does it contain? Does it repeat something? Can we cut it
down to make it shorter? If we cut it, what important meaning will be lost?
Other activities can be thought of: on the images in which the river is
portrayed; or open-ended such as ‘the Ganga stands for__________’. Students
can be asked to describe some other place (river, mountain, sea, forest) with
the help of vocabulary from the passage. Feel free to make as many exercises
as you want.
Test your understanding-II
Some suggestions for activities are:
Key questions for the story can be asked, for example: Who is Murch?
How does he succeed in stealing the man’s car?
You can think about a prediction activity too: will the students be able to
predict what happens? Or is this is a case of reading backwards, in order to
comprehend.
The descriptions of the characters can also be the basis of activity e.g. Why
is the description of Murch’s jacket so important? Is he pretending to be
someone else? What do you infer by the appearance of the man who owns
the car?
This story builds on background knowledge (of big hotels, of the practice of
giving the keys of one’s car to an attendant for parking it, etc). You may
think of ways in which students can guess what happens in such situations.
You can also make exercises on some aspect of language, or suggest some
writing exercise e.g. describing the man’s reaction when he comes out and
finds his car has been stolen.
40
UNIT 14 TEACHING LITERARY TEXTS-II
Structure
14.1 Objectives
14.2 Introduction
14.3 The Language of Poetry
14.4 Types of Poetry
14.5 Activities and Exercises in Teaching Poetry
14.6 Let Us Sum Up
14.7 References and Suggested Reading
14.8 Answers
14.1 INTRODUCTION
Teachers love to teach poetry. But we must reflect on what the teaching of
poetry actually means. Often, teachers feel they should make the idea in a
poem clear to the students, and so they adopt the method of explanation.
However, the basic question regarding poetry is the same as that of other
texts and that is: the development of the ability to read. Students will not
really comprehend the meaning of a poem until they read it themselves.
And indeed when they do read it, they will discover many meanings in it.
Therefore, in poetry, the reading of the text is even more crucial, because a
poetic text has many layers. It cannot be reduced to one idea only. The
teacher’s primary task is to help students to read, and further to discuss and
write about the poem. Simply trying to explain a poem will not enable a
student to read and appreciate it. The particular kind of challenge that a
poetic text offers to the readers, teachers and students, is not only of factual
reading, but that of making inferences, reading between the lines and
uncovering the implied meanings. In other words, reading poetry demands
more advanced reading skills. It is only when students read the poems
themselves that they can appreciate the particular quality of the poetic text.
If the teacher explains the meaning of a poem, it will be reduced to mere
paraphrase. The essence of the language will be lost, and this will amount
to destroying the delicate balance of words and feelings that a poem creates.
Instead of enjoying poetry, students will find it boring.
To this, we may add the aspect of speech or sounds. Poetry is meant to be
spoken and heard. In fact, for many centuries before poems were printed in
books, people recited and sang them, and thus remembered them. Speaking
and listening are important skill areas as much as reading and writing, as far
as poetry is concerned.
This brings us to consider the language of poetry which is of a particular
kind. It functions in ways that are different from an ordinary, everyday use
of language. The Czech linguist Roman Jacobson identified the various
functions of language, such as giving messages, expressing ideas etc. The 41
Reading Comprehension poetic function is a special function of language. It is not that of conveying
a message directly. Here the language functions to draw attention to itself.
This happens through the choice of words and sentences and the combination
of these in such a way that our attention is captured by the language itself.
Some particular features in a poem may jump out at us, and have an immediate
effect. Even if it is only a sound, if it is repeated in a pattern, we notice it.
If a word is repeated again and again, we recognize it as important. It stands
out against other sounds or words which are not so prominent. In other
words, one particular item of language – at any level, be it sounds, words
or sentences — may be foregrounded. The items that are foregrounded
stand out and are remembered.
Such repetitions create patterns of sounds and words, and create a unique
text. To this may be added some other unusual kind of sentence or the
coining of new words. This may be a deviation, and it may be so different
from our common everyday use of language that it may seem that the poet
is deliberately mocking the rules of grammar and word formation. Such
uses of language in poetry create such a unique text that any attempt to try
and reduce it to a paraphrase destroys its very basis. An oft-quoted example
of this deviant construction and use of vocabulary is ‘a grief ago’ (Dylan
Thomas).
Perhaps it is because of these special qualities of language in poetry, that the
question may arise as to whether reading poetry is a useful component in the
language teaching syllabus. Since we do not actually use poetic language
in day to day communication, many people believe that it is unnecessary to
teach poetry to develop communication skills in second language learning.
But as we have discussed in the previous unit, literature provides interesting
contexts and original material for the language learner, and to some extent,
this applies to poetry also. Teachers may question the need to go into the
language of poetry in much depth, as it may not be directly useful in the
classroom. Young children may not understand technical aspects of metre,
or other levels of linguistic analysis of a poem. But we must accept that this
knowledge will serve us well in many ways. Firstly, it will help teachers to
see which poems are most appropriate for different levels of students. As
it is with other forms of literature, the right selection of poems is important.
Different poems appeal to different age groups. A poem may appear to be
simple on the surface, but may be quite complex. It is only when the teacher
explores the nature of poetry that a judgement about the simplicity or
complexity of poems can be made. Secondly, the teacher will be able to
pick up those aspects of the poem which are most significant, and develop
some activities and exercises on these aspects. In other words, greater
familiarity with the language of the poem will make it easier for the teacher
to devise a wide range of exercises on the poem, which will develop the
students’ awareness and enjoyment of poetry. Once this is done, students
will be encouraged to read more, which will continue the process of their
language development and skills of comprehension.
14.2 OBJECTIVES
After going through this Unit, you should be able to:
42
 appreciate the essential characteristics of a poetic text and understand Teaching Literary Texts-II
what makes such a text different from other forms of literature;
 explore various approaches to teaching poetry, taking into account both
the aspect of language and the task of overall appreciation of poetry;
and
 teach poetry in the classroom as part of teaching English as a second
language.
14.3 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY

We can go a little further into understanding the language of poetry, starting
from the first level, that is, of sounds. Let us remember that poetry makes
some part of the language prominent by repetition, creating parallelism, or
by changing the order of words in sentences, or by making comparisons and
indicating different meanings of words.
Sounds
Various kinds of sound repetition occur in poetry. There is a purpose to
these – the poem becomes easy to remember, and to recite. Take the following
lines from ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ by Coleridge:
The wild breeze blew, the white foam flew
The furrow followed free
We were the first that ever burst
Into the silent sea.
Here we see the repetition of the first consonant in the beginning of the
words e.g. /b/ in breeze, blew; /f/ in foam, flew, furrow, followed, free; /s/
in silent, sea. This is called alliteration. Other than the first consonant in
the words, there may be repetition of other consonants, e.g./s/ and /t/ in
first, burst, silent. This is consonance. Similarly, there is repetition of
vowel sounds e.g. /ai/ in wild, white, silent; /i:/ in breeze, free, sea; /u:/ in
blew, flew, etc. This is assonance. Taken together, all these sound repetitions
create a pattern which becomes clear when we read the poem aloud. They
also create rhyme, as the last sounds are repeated e.g. blew-flew, free-sea,
first-burst.
Metre is another feature peculiar to poetry. You may have often felt that
words and lines in poetry sound musical. How does this happen? Along
with the patterns of sounds, there are patterns of lines in poetry. A line in
poetry is different from a sentence. A break is made after few syllables to
make a line, and this pattern is continued over several lines. This is the
metre, which is the length of each line in a poem. As in the above example,
there are four lines, but are there four sentences? The breaking up of a
sentence into lines creates a special kind of rhythm, which is not the same
as the rhythm when the sentence is read in continuation. This poetic rhythm
is created by the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line. Again,
taking the example of the above, we can trace the pattern of stressed (/) and
unstressed (X) syllables as follows:
43
Reading Comprehension The wild breeze blew, the white foam flew.
x / x / x / x /
The furrow followed free.
X / x / x /
We were the first that ever burst
x / x / x / x /
Into the silent sea.
X / x / x /
Looking at the above lines, you will notice the similarity of patterns of lines
1 and 3 on one hand and lines 2 and 4 on the other. This opposition of two
sets of patterns creates another pattern. While lines 1 and 2 consist of
complete sentences, lines 3 and 4 are the continuation of one sentence. This
is a run-on line, in which the line stops, but the sentence continues to the
next line.
In this context, it will be useful to remember that the teaching of English in
India occurs in a multilingual environment. The sound patterns such as
those mentioned above are just as much a feature of poetry in other languages
as they are in English, so the teachers may take up some poems from the
students’ first language, or mother tongue, just to use their sensitivity towards
sounds in their own language to help them to be sensitive to the sounds of
English.
Words
Poetry contains words which have been carefully chosen both for their sound
effects as well as their meanings. For long, it was felt that poetry has special
words, of ‘high’ vocabulary, or old-sounding words, such as ‘steed’ (for
horse) and ‘tresses’ (for hair). But if we look at poems carefully, we find
that the words used are not always difficult or infrequent. They are used
differently, and sometimes at different places in sentences than they are
normally placed, or as another part of speech than the one to which they
belong, and their meanings may thus change. But poets do not only choose
words. They also invent them.
They can twist words by adding a prefix, or suffix, where it is not usually
placed. For example, we have words like ‘foretell’, ‘foresee’ but not
‘foresuffer’ (which the poet T.S. Eliot uses). Gerald Manley Hopkins another
famous poet also coins words. In the poem ‘Inversnaid’ he uses the word
‘twindles’ which is a combination of ‘twines’ and ‘dwindles’.
Sentences
There is grammar in poetry, but it is used in many different ways. The
normal order of words or phrases is changed or reversed. Take the following
example:
Home is the hunter, home from the hill
44 And the sailor home from the sea.

In the normal sentence structure, we would have: ‘the hunter is home from Teaching Literary Texts-II
the hill’ which is a Subject-Verb-Adverbial pattern. Here we have a reverse
of that: Adverbial-Verb-Subject. The subject is mentioned last. The effect
of this is to give more emphasis to the word ‘home’, which is mentioned
three times in the two lines – so it is obvious that the idea of home is very
significant here. But the normal pattern is restored in the second line, so this
sets up a contrast between sentence pattern 1, which is ‘reversal of word
order’ and sentence pattern 2 which is ‘restoring the word order’. Of such
parallels and contrasts is poetry made!
Discourse
Discourse is a higher level of organization of language. It is not just a
matter of sentences, but how the sentences are put together to make a coherent
text and create meaning. To understand discourse we must be aware of the
context of the situation and the speech event: Who is speaking? To whom?
What is the situation? What is the background which it is assumed that the
speaker/writer and reader/listener share? What is not shared? Are there any
silences or gaps in the communication? If there is a addressee, is he/she
human, animal, plant, god or goddess, or is it unclear who is being addressed?
Why? What is overstated, or given too much attention, and is there an
attempt to persuade other people?
We will know the answers to these questions when we trace aspects of
language such as pronouns (the use of I, we, they, us, my, your, etc.), sentence
connections (then, now, but, though etc), word choices, sentence forms such
as active/passive, references to names, people and things from a particular
environment or culture. All these are significant in poetry and can be noticed
by an alert reader.

1. Make a list of repetition of sounds in the following lines:
Cannon to the right of them
Cannon to the left of them
Volleyed and thundered
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
2. What do you understand by the terms ‘foregrounding’ and ‘deviation’
of language in poetry? Give examples from your reading of poetry.
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
45
14.4 TYPES OF POETRY
Poetry takes many forms, and there are some which children may find quite
interesting, in their shape, or rhythm, or play with words. We know how
nursery rhymes, doggerel, sing-song chants etc., fascinate children from an
early age. In India, we often hear children repeating some doggerel about
political parties at election time, even though they don’t understand what it
means; or singing lines of Hindi film songs or advertisements, just for the
pleasure of the rhythm. Some of the types of poetry of interest to teachers
in providing variety in the classroom are discussed below.
Visual poetry
Poems are often written in different visual and graphic forms, presenting
pictures which demonstrate the theme of the poem. A well -known example
is that of a poem by George Herbert, a seventeenth century poet, ‘Easter
Wings’:
Lord, who created man in wealth and store
Though foolishly he lost the same
Decaying more and more
Till he became
Most poor
With thee
O let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories
Then shall the fall further the flight in me
The setting of the poem as a pair of angel’s wings presents the theme of the
poem – that of a prayer for resurrection, very much in keeping with the spirit
of Easter. Poems can be seen as shape and movement, and shape of a sound
or letter can be presented in many interesting ways ( children are fascinated
by Google graphic in which the word ‘Google’ is presented in multifarious
forms).
Limericks
These are simple forms, but have rhyme, word play and humour, often
irreverent, and all these are forms which children love and delight in. Some
examples:
i. There was an old man with a beard
Who said, ‘its just as I feared!
Two owls and a hen,
Four larks and a wren
Have all built their nests in my beard!’
46
ii. There was a young lady whose chin Teaching Literary Texts-II
Resembled the point of a pin

So she had it made sharp,
And purchased a harp
And played several tunes with her chin.
Nonsense verse
Why do you think young children like nonsense verse, or nursery rhymes
whose meanings they don’t understand? It is the pleasure of the sounds, and
the rhythm that they enjoy. But even more than that, they enjoy the freedom,
the liberation from meaning, which is as important for the human soul as the
creation of meaning. Language binds us as much as it helps us, and to be
free of the fixed structures of language is to be in world of pure joy, as that
of music, play and dance. Look at the following lines chosen by an eight
year old child, describing the rain:
Dot a dot dot a dot dot/ on the window pane
Speck a speck spack, fleck a fleck flack/on the window pane
Slosh a glosh slosh a glosh/slither and slather a glide
A puddle a jump, a huddle a jump, a pudmuddle jump and slide.
Or from Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky’:
One, two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker snack
He left it dead and with its head
He went galumphing back
O has thou slain the jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy
O frabjous day! Calloo, callay!
He chortled in his joy.
Ballads and Narrative poems
These poems tell stories, in a traditional simple form, which is the ballad,
such as The Lady of Shallot (Tennyson) or the The Diverting History of
John Gilpin (Cowper), while The Highwayman (Alfred Noyes) is a narrative
of mystery which many children love. Lesser known but extremely rhythmic
is Browning’s verse rendering of the Pied Piper of Hamlin. Some poems are
in the form of a dialogue, (a question-answer sequence), or even a monologue
(a speaker speaks to a listener, but the listener does not speak).
Descriptive poetry
When poems describe a character, or a scene or a landscape, they often
succeed in drawing vivid pictures e.g. of seasons, of birds and animals and 47
Reading Comprehension even family members, particularly parents and grandparents. These are rich
in images, some of which may be familiar, and some rather startling or
strange. Many Romantic poems of nature are simple and appealing to
children.
Lyric poetry
This type of poetry resembles song, and very expressive of personal feelings.
Examples are poems like Blake’s Songs of innocence, Tennyson’s The Brook,
Walter de la Mare’s If I were Lord of Tartary, and many odes by the Romantic
poets.
Haiku
This is a Japanese form, very short, with seventeen syllables in all, and
captures a single moment. It is a form of meditation, but children today may
be more attracted to it because it is short. These days there is also SMS
poetry, very short and sent to people on mobile phones. Today’s children are
quite comfortable with such forms, and learn to use language in a very
concise manner. Students may respond well to examples of haiku such as
the following:
1. The tower high
I climb; there, on that fir top,
Sits a butterfly!
2 here on the mountain pass
Somehow they draw one’s heart so-
Violets on the grass.
14.5 ACTIVITIES AND EXERCISES IN

TEACHING POETRY
Pre-reading is important as a warm up activity, a way of approaching the
text by linking it with the students’ own experiences and associations before
looking at the way in which the poem presents an experience or situation.
Pre-reading can take several forms: questions, anecdotes, use of pictures to
start a discussion etc. For instance, if a poem is about neighbours, the
teacher may ask:
Do you know your neighbours? Who are they? What do they do? Do you
like them?
Or students can be asked to complete a sentence like: ‘A good
neighbour__________’
If it is a poem about a season, pictures can be collected (as those on calendars)
e.g. Christmas and New Year cards have pictures of snow. Students can be
asked to describe these pictures. Then the focus can be narrowed down to
questions: What do people do in this season? Does anyone travel? How do
you feel in a season like this? Will you stay at home or go out? What do
animals do in this season? These question-answer activities will serve to
provide a context, and help in introducing a poem like Robert Frost’s Stopping
48 by Woods on a Snowy Evening.
Reading for keywords, or foregrounded (repeated, unusual) words or Teaching Literary Texts-II
phrases: Students can be asked to skim through the poem quickly, and say
which words, or sounds, jump out and grab their attention. Some of these
will be common among most students, others may notice something that no-
one else has perceived. The teacher must accept all these, and use the
blackboard to put up all the prominent items. Students can then be asked
to read the poem again, with particular attention to the items listed on the
board, and note down, or tell the teacher if they notice that some things are
repeated. They can also work in pairs at this stage and read the poem
together to make their observations. At this stage, they need not write full
sentences, but jot down words, or line numbers – in short, simple note-
making may be encouraged at this point.
Grammar activities: Of the various kinds of exercises that are possible
in grammar, the ones which suit poetry are exercises of rearrangement of
sentences and phrases and substitution of parts of speech. As discussed
above, poets often reorder the regular word order, and an exercise in which
the ‘normal’ order of the sentence is rearranged, will be useful for students
in getting more familiarity with grammatical patterns. The use of tenses can
also be practiced. Let us consider the following quatrain from ‘Rubaiyat of
Omar Khayyam’ :
The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on
Nor all they piety and wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line
Nor all they tears wash a word of it.
There is the use of a particular kind of present tense (writes, moves), which
indicates a universal truth (e.g. the sun rises). Other examples of the same
use of present can be practiced by the students. Then there is the use of
‘shall’ which indicates the obligation to do something (e.g. I shall go), in
‘shall lure it back’, ‘shall wash’. But this is combined with a negative ‘nor’,
which means that ‘it shall not be done’, or ‘it is not possible’. Students can
be given similar sentences for practice of use of ‘shall’ and ‘shall not’, ‘will’
and ‘will not’, ‘can’ and ‘can not’ etc. Then, the example of the use of non-
finite verb, ‘having writ’, can be a chance to explore the use of non-finite
forms of the verb, which are often used to add to the meaning of a sentence.
In this way, grammatical forms and their meanings are linked and can be
understood more clearly than isolated exercises in grammar which are based
only on rules and not on meaning and use.
Another useful exercise in grammar is that of filling in blanks in sentences,
by blanking out some parts of speech. Some poems can be useful in both
substitution and blank filling, as the verse from Jabberwocky in Lewis
Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland shows:
It was brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe. 49
Reading Comprehension The words which are in italics are all ‘form’ words and those not in italics
are ‘function’ words. The difference between form and function words can
be made clear by this example. Even if the ‘form’ words are all nonsense
words, the ‘function’ words give the grammatical structure that connects all
the ‘form’ words, and this shows that the ‘form’ words are nouns, adjectives,
and verbs. Students can then substitute their own words in the place of these
nonsense words e.g. morning/evening for ‘brillig’, ‘happy birds’ for ‘slithy
toves’, and so on. This exercise sharpens the students’ understanding of
grammatical relationships.
Another example illustrates the use of blank filling. Let us take up the
following lines:
Day after day, day after day we stuck
Nor ________, nor __________
As idle as a ____________ship
Upon a _________ ocean.
Here, the nouns and adjectives are blanked out. It may be made clear to
students that they have to choose the right words, e,g, the second blank in
line 2 should have a word that rhymes with the last word in line 4, ‘ocean’.
They should be allowed to experiment with several words to see if they ‘fit’,
and also convey meaning. Only then can we give the actual words: ‘Nor
breath, nor motion/As idle as a painted ship/upon a painted ocean.’ This
will surprise the students. Why is the word ‘painted’ repeated? Couldn’t the
poet have chosen something else? But the repetition actually strengthens the
sense of stillness and unreality of being stuck in the middle of the sea, so
there is a reason for the poet to use it. Such gentle explorations into grammar
and meaning are aids to the understanding of language in a much more
friendly way than explanations of rules.
Vocabulary: This is a fertile area with regard to poetry. Students can read
through the poem to see which words are repeated, and which synonyms of
those words are used. Words can be substituted by their synonyms, and the
teacher can discuss whether the synonym conveys the same meaning, or
makes a difference.
For example, in Wordsworth’s poem ‘The Daffodils’, the word ‘lonely’ occurs
in the first line. Students may be asked to see if there are words with a
similar meaning, and may find them, such as ‘solitary’. After noting these,
students can be asked to see if there are words showing other moods and
make a list, e.g. ‘happy’, ‘gay’ and ‘jocund’ on one hand, and ‘vacant’,
‘pensive’ as the antonyms. They will see how patterns of similarity and
contrast are built up in this way.
Another example illustrates how unfamiliar words are often used within a
simple grammatical structure. Many readers of ‘The Brook’ by Tennyson
have the impression that it is a very simple poem, and it is often prescribed
even at primary school. But let us see the vocabulary: is it familiar? Look
at the italicized words:
50
I come from haunt from coot and hern Teaching Literary Texts-II
I make a sudden sally.

And bicker down a valley.
Questions can be asked: Is bicker actually a word in English? If so, how is
it used? We say about people,’ they were bickering’, meaning ‘quarreling’,
but can we say this about a brook? What does this tell us about the brook?
Why is it said that it ‘bickers’? Though it may not seem important, a small
word like this gives a lot of indications about the poem. The sound made
by the running water may be similar to the murmuring of people when they
argue, and this strengthens the element of personification of the brook as a
person, which is already evident in the use of first person ‘I’.
Further, we may explore other words: ‘haunt’, ‘sally’ etc. We can check
them from the dictionary. Which words are still being used today, and which
are not much in use? What is the difference between a brook, a stream, a
river?
This may also be related to the title of the poem. In fact, students can be
asked to give their own titles, picking up some other important words in the
poem, and the teacher can ask them: ‘why do you want to give this title?’
This can also lead to the teacher suggesting other similar words or synonyms
and putting them on the board for students to note down and consider their
meanings.
Images in poetry are made of words. Words are also used to compare two
dissimilar things. Young learners need not be burdened with definitions of
‘simile’, ‘metaphor’ etc., but they can certainly be encouraged to see what
is being compared, to what, and discuss why the comparison is made. Robert
Burns makes a simple set of comparisons:
‘My love is like a red, red rose/ That’s newly sprung in June.
My love is like a melody/That’s sweetly sung in tune.’
So many things are evident here: rhyme, repetition, alliterations etc. All
these bring about relationships between ‘my love=rose=melody’ and along
with this, the feeling of summer (June), and music (tune). All these ideas get
linked. Even in a simple comparison, such as ‘the moon’s a balloon’ (e.g.
Cummings) has a unique combination of sound and meaning. Here, language
expands and students get a sense of its wonder and its possibilities. It is this
which makes us love a language and we try to express ourselves in it.
Listening to the poems being read out or recited by teachers and students,
as well as on tapes and CDs, proves invaluable in developing an ear for the
tone, musicality and rhythm of the language. It can be encouraged by
specific listening activities, such as listening and repeating, listening and
filling in blanks, listening and identifying words, rhymes etc.
Speaking and writing can be integrated in the reading of poetry. Instead
of writing tasks being random, they can be related to the poem e.g. a poem
about a season can be the basis for the students to write about their favorite
season, or give an account of the activities done in different seasons. If the
poem is in the form of a dialogue, the dialogue can be enacted, and a 51
Reading Comprehension dialogue in the poem can be continued by asking students to imagine what
more can be said.
Speaking in the form of discussion can be encouraged at all times, and even
if the children speak in their mother tongue, this should be allowed, as it will
help them to overcome their hesitation in talking about their responses. If
they write out a few lines, they can be asked to read them out. It is also
suggested that different opinions should be encouraged. All students do not
like all poems, and it is obvious that they should be free to dislike a poem,
and at the same time, be asked to give reasons why they dislike it. This
activity is vital for developing the kind of critical thinking that we wish to
foster in our students through the teaching of literature.

1. Make some exercises in teaching grammar and vocabulary based
on the following extract of poetry:
Slowly silently now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way and that she peers, and sees,
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog.
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam, .........................................
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
Walter de la Mare
.........................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................
2. What are the sound patterns in the above lines, and how can they
be used for developing pronunciation?
.........................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................
3. Consider the phrases: ‘the trumpet of liberty’ (John Taylor) and ‘all
the world’s a stage’ (Shakespeare). For each one, construct some
parallel structures that can help in language practice.
.........................................................................................................
.........................................................................................................
52
Teaching Literary Texts-II
14.6 LET US SUM UP
Teachers may feel that they need to give their students a ‘central idea’ or
definite meaning of a poem in the form of a summary or paraphrase. On the
other hand, there is the view that ‘a poem should not mean but be’, that is,
there is no single or definite meaning in a poem. It is open to interpretation
by readers in any way. The way to achieve both these aims is to first provide
students with opportunities to discover meaning. The urge to make meaning
is an essential part of language learning and cannot be denied. Along with
this, there is also the need to negotiate or share meaning with others. The
classroom is the arena where this process is undertaken and the social
construction of meaning can take place in a reasonably encouraging
environment.
14.7 REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READING

Leech, Geoffrey. A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry. London: Longman.
1967.
Maley,A and S. Moulding. Poem into Poem: Reading and Writing Poems
with Students of English. Cambridge:CUP.1985.
McRae, John. The Language of Poetry. London:Routledge.1998.
McRae, John and Boardman, R. Reading Between the Lines: Integrated
Language and Literature Activities Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
1984. Reader and Teacher’s book, with CD.
Webb, Kaye. I Like This Poem – Poems chosen by children. London: Puffin
Books.1979.
Webexhibits.org/poetry through the ages
Teachers are advised to use the internet for live readings and recordings of
poetry, which can be downloaded and put on CDs for the students to listen.
14.8 ANSWERS
Check Your Progess 1
1. You may notice the repetition of sharp consonants – particularly /d/.
The rhythm may appear to be that of marching ‘right, left’ and the
parallelism may suggest the order of the marching army. Other things
to note may be: reversal of word order, rhyme, impact of words such
as ‘volleyed’, ‘thundered’ etc. Taking these together, you can form an
impression of the use of language in this extract from Tennyson’s
‘Charge of The Light Brigade’. You can read the full poem to see how
this language shapes the poem and the ideas in it.
2. When one particular item of language – be it sounds, words or sentences
– is repeated again and again so that it stands out against other sounds
or words is known as foregrounding of language in poetry.
Sometimes poets use words or sentences which are so different from
our common everyday use of language, it is called deviation of language
in poetry. e.g. ‘a grief ago’ (Dylan Thomas). 53
Reading Comprehension Check Your Progress 2
1. Some aspects of the poem that you can pick up can be:
Grammar: Adverbs ‘slowly, silently’ are in the beginning of the line.
Why? Rearrangement exercise: The sentence can be re-arranged. What
nouns and pronouns are used (e.g. ‘she’ for the moon)?
Vocabulary: Students can guess the meaning of ‘shoon’. They can be
asked to count the number of times the word ‘silver’ is mentioned.
Why? Can the poem be given the title ‘Silver’? Or can it be given the
title ‘The Moon’ or ‘The Silver Moon’ or ‘Silver Light’? It can be fun
to explore these alternatives and justify them. Then, there is a word
like ‘moveless’. Can ‘-less’ be added to ‘move’ in the same way as
‘timeless’, ‘baseless’ etc? The poet could have written ‘unmoving’
instead of ‘moveless’, but why is this unusual word brought in? Could
it be for preserving the metre (‘unmoving’ is three syllables, ‘moveless’
is two syllables)?
2. The sounds of ‘s’ and ‘sh’ can be practiced. Tongue twisters can also
be used for practice of these sounds. The rhyme scheme can also be
noticed (it is simple aa, bb, cc).
3. The structure of the first phrase is ‘the _______ of _________’. This
can be filled in. (example: the god of small things’ – Arundhati Roy)
The structure of the second phrase is ‘________ is_______’ , which
is a simple equation. (example:’ life is a walking shadow’ —
Shakespeare)
54
UNIT 15 VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT
Structure
15.1 Objectives
15.2 Introduction
15.3 Active and Passive Vocabulary
15.4 Content Words and Function Words
15.5 Some Difficulties in Learning English Vocabulary
15.6 Techniques for Presenting Vocabulary
15.7 Word Building: Affixation and Compounding
15.8 Using a Dictionary and a Thesaurus
15.9 Vocabulary Games
15.10 Let Us Sum Up
15.11 References and Suggested Readings
15.12 Answers
15.1 OBJECTIVES
After you have read this lesson, you should be able to:
 differentiate between active and passive vocabulary;
 distinguish content and function words;
 discuss with appropriate examples how homonyms, homophones,
homographs or idiomatic expressions make language learning difficult;
 enumerate a few techniques for presenting vocabulary in a classroom
situation;
 justify the use of dictionary and thesaurus to expand vocabulary; and
 organize vocabulary games in your classroom.
15.2 INTRODUCTION
Like bricks when laid out properly, correctly and with some imagination can
build up simple walls or complex design for buildings and mansions, not to
talk of other structures, similarly a language user uses different words to
construct sentences – both single word sentences or longer ones. But just as
bricks alone are not adequate, and they need to be strengthened by use of
mortar/concrete mixture, similarly words alone may not be adequate. The
appropriacy of the word chosen, the word order in which it is placed, the
nuance of the meaning – everything play an important role. In this lesson,
we will read how words – oral or written – are gradually learnt and how a
learner, over the years, adds to the initial word base.
55
15.3 ACTIVE AND PASSIVE VOCABULARY
Just think for a moment. Can you use all the words the moment you have
heard them or have read them once? Do you use all the unfamiliar words –
the meanings of which you have guessed while reading or listening – in your
speech or writing? Some words you may, some you might not. But you start
understanding those words if you hear or read them again and again. Our
listening and reading vocabulary is much more than our speaking or writing
vocabulary.
The words that you can use appropriately when you say or write something
form what is known as your active vocabulary and those that you have an
idea of or can guess the meaning of, but cannot use confidently form a part
of your passive vocabulary. Our active vocabulary is more limited (smaller)
than our passive vocabulary. As teachers we try our best to increase the
repertoire of both active and passive vocabulary of our students with continual
review, reuse and recycling of words as there is a transition period for words
to pass from passive to active vocabulary. All of us master those words first
that we need to use in our communication with others. And we add to our
word base over the years.

1. Given below are a few words. Under which category ‘Active’ or
‘Passive’ would you put them?
Antiseptic anomaly forte herbarium Paroxysm
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
i. Consult a dictionary to find out the meaning and pronunciation
of the words (given above) if you do not know.
......................................................................................................
......................................................................................................
ii. Compare your list with someone in your family or one of your
friends. Does the list differ?
......................................................................................................
......................................................................................................
......................................................................................................
2. Look at the following words:
Rapport Abdicate
Recede Maverick
Would memorizing the meaning and pronunciation of these words
help you in using them immediately in your speech? Give at least
one reason for your answer.
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
56 .............................................................................................................
Teaching Vocabulary
15.4 CONTENT WORDS AND FUNCTION WORDS
Read the following sentences:
1. I saw a beautiful bird sitting on a branch of a gulmohar tree.
2. Pari, my five year old granddaughter, wants to wear blue jeans all the
time. She cries loudly whenever her parents ask her to put on a frock,
however beautiful.
Look at the underlined words carefully, once again. Even as isolated discrete
words they carry some meaning. These words, if you observe carefully, are
nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs. These words are called content words.
On the other hand, the words which are not underlined are function words.
These words are more frequently used and carry some grammatical meaning.
These words which are also known as structure words, are modal and auxiliary
verbs, determiners, prepositions and conjunctions.
New learners learn content words first. The list of such words are open, in
the sense that new words are added to this list over the years, e.g. think of
the word helipad or smart phone. Did these words exist some hundred years
ago? Why were these words added to the list of words that are so commonly
used today? Think and write your answer here.
.......................................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................................
On the other hand, function words are a much smaller set, although more
frequently used and the word list is a closed one, i.e. no new determiners or
prepositions have been added to this list.
Content and function words need different teaching approaches. While the
meaning of content words can be explained and exemplified in a variety of
ways, function words are learnt through continued use in a range of different
situations. We shall come back to the teaching of content words in a later
section of this unit.
1. Which of the following words would you consider of recent origin?
Phishing hand blender milk shake
Cute clone pod
Flash mob blue tooth smart card smiley
.............................................................................................................
2. Look for the meanings of the words given in question 1. Use a
dictionary to decide the part of speech these words belong to.
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
3. Discuss with someone you know how long these words have been in
circulation.
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
57
15.5 SOME DIFFICULTIES IN LEARNING
ENGLISH VOCABULARY
Learners of English as Second Language may find a few stumbling blocks
in mastering this language. In this section we shall look at a few of these
difficulties.
One Word Many Meanings (Homonyms)

Homonyms are words which have the same spelling and pronunciation but
different meanings in different contexts. In the following sentences, the
word club has different meanings.
As a child, you might have gone to a local club in your colony. You might
have seen the picture of Bhim with a club in his hand in Mahabharat serial
on television, and if you play cards, you have to deal with clubs in the pack.
You might suggest to a student to club two paragraphs together to make the
writing more compact.
 A club is an association of people with common interest (first sentence).
 A club is a heavy stick with a thick end, used as a hand weapon (Bhim
with a club in his hand).
 Clubs is one of the four suits in a conventional pack of playing cards.
 In the third sentence, club means combine.

Let us take another example.
1. She went to her room and lay down on the bed.
2. My husband is busy preparing a bed for the pancies.
3. Heat the curry thoroughly and serve it on a bed of rice.
You will notice that the word bed has different meanings in the examples
given above. You understand the meaning from the context in which the
word has been used. E.g. the context of the first sentence is a piece of
furniture, in the second sentence the context is the area in a garden so that
plants can be grown in it, whereas “a bed of rice” in a recipe would mean
58 a layer of rice.
These contexts give the clues about the meaning of the word bed or club. Teaching Vocabulary
Read the examples given above again and look at the words that give you
the clues about the situation.
In English, there are many such words where the spelling (written form) and
pronunciation (sound) are the same but they have different meanings in
different contexts. As a teacher, your examples (to explain the word) must
emphasize the context in which a particular word is used. Also, as a teacher,
you would teach the most frequent use of the word first. For example ‘to lie
down on a bed’. It is better not to teach all the situations at the same time
because that would be confusing for your learners. The other meanings are
learnt gradually over a period of time. Hence, we can say that learning
words is a continual process. There is a lot to be learnt about a word and
it may be learnt in different ways.

1. Look at the following sentences.
i. The Kalindi King Park is located on the banks of the River .
Yamuna.
ii. Most of the banks in our area are closed on Sundays.
iii. The aeroplane banked steeply before it landed.
Which word will you teach your class IV students in a vernacular
medium rural school first? Why?
.....................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................
2. There are many fans in the room.
Is this sentence ambiguous in meaning? Give a reason for your answer.
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
3. What are the different meanings of the word light? Use the word in
sentences to bring out the different meanings. Compare your answers
with any dictionary.
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................. 59
Reading Comprehension Same Sound Different Form and meanings (Homophones)
Look at the following set of words.
A B
1 Great grate
2 flour flower
3 break brake
4 there their
5 stationary stationery
6 bow bough
What is common in the different set of words?
Yes. You have got it right. The pronunciation (sound) of both the words are
exactly the same but the written form (spelling) are different. The meanings
of the words are also different. Which spelling to use is decided by the
context in which the word is used. Such pair of words – with identical sound
but different spelling and different meanings – are known as homophones.
homo = same
phone = sound

1. You must have noticed the warning on many cars / taxies in India -
Keep distance. Power Break. What is wrong? Why?
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
2. Your students frequently make mistakes in using there – their. How
can you teach them the correct use of these two words? Give two
suggestions.
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
3. Give examples of five sets of homophones that you would like to
teach your students in the lower classes.
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
60 .............................................................................................................
Same Form Different Sound and Meaning (Homographs) Teaching Vocabulary
Now let us look at a different set of examples.

1a The Director’s Secretary took down the minutes.
1b Even minute details are taken care of by a diligent organizer.
2a Warriors, in earlier days, fought with bows and arrows.
2b We bow our head to the martyrs of our freedom movement.
What do you notice in the above examples? Write it in a sentence here.
........................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................
........................................................................................................................
Did you notice that the spelling in both the sets of sentences are the same?
What about the sound (pronunciation) and meaning? Consult a dictionary if
you are not sure. Such pair of words are termed homographs.
homo = same
graph = writing
In the above examples, did the context of the word help you in deciding the
meaning? If yes, then write down the pronunciation and meanings of the
words minute in sentences 1a and 1b and bow in sentences 2a and 2b.

1. ‘The words lead (v) and lead (n) are homographs as are the words
live (v) and live (adj). Explain with suitable example.
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
2. Give examples of another set of homograph (other than the ones
mentioned here). Use them in your sentences to bring out the
difference in meaning. Consult a dictionary to check the pronunciation.
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
............................................................................................................
Idiomatic Expressions mean the same as to lend someone money? What

does from hand to mouth mean? Who in your family is the apple of your
eye? Or for what matter do you have a green thumb?
As an experienced and adroit user of the language you know the meaning
of such ‘idiomatic expressions’ and you are well aware that these frozen
expressions mean something which is totally different than the sum total of
61
Reading Comprehension the individual words. The meaning cannot be derived from the individual
words and must be learnt as a complete unit of meaning. And this
understanding is acquired slowly, gradually and with constant contact with
the language. A new learner can definitely find such expressions baffling
and problematic. As teachers you have to understand that idioms have to be
learnt as complete expressions and often cause problems for new learners.

1. Explain the meaning of the underlined idioms.
a. I refuse to play second fiddle to my younger sister any more. I
have had enough.
b. I am sorry I cannot listen to you now. I am pressed for time.
c. I’d better write in my notebook. I have a head like a sieve.
.......................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................
2. Substitute the underlined words with the appropriate idiom given in
the box.
A skeleton in the cupboard make short work of

Drop a line get the message
a. You needn’t look at your watch again. I’ve understood what you
want me to do and I’ll go now.
.......................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................
b. It is commonly said that every family has a secret or embarrassing
fact which no one likes to discuss.
.......................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................
c Don’t forget to write to us as soon as you arrive in Delhi.
.......................................................................................................
.......................................................................................................
3 Think of four idiomatic expressions in your mother tongue that use
different body parts e.g. to have a finger in every pie. Find out if
there are English equivalent to those expressions in your mother
tongue. Two examples in Hindi are given below:
oongli pe nachaana
Sar aankon pe bithaana
62
Formal-Informal Expressions / Approved – Disapproved Teaching Vocabulary
Levels of formality and the connotations of some words also pose practical
problems for learners of a second language. In learning a new language there
is a tendency to use the more formal language in normal conversational
situations or vice versa i.e. use a slang or colloquial expression inappropriately.
Similarly the positive or negative connotations of some words might create
difficulty to the learners. We all know how we applaud the firmness,
determination or resoluteness (words indicating approval) of people we
like whereas we deplore the stubbornness, obstinacy and pigheadedness
(terms indicating disapproval) of those whom we don’t like in exactly the
same situations. Similarly the same person can be fat or plump to different
persons. It takes a long time for the learners to catch such nuances of the
language.

1. Write formal (f), informal (inf), approved or disapproved against
the words given below. Consult a dictionary, if necessary.
Laudatory ………………… smart alec …………………
Sissy ………………… felicitous …………………
Dirt cheap ………………… dude …………………
Soporific ………………… clobber …………………
15.6 TECHNIQUES FOR PRESENTING

VOCABULARY
In a second language learning situations, a teacher plays a significant role in
expanding the ‘word power’ of the learners through various techniques. In
this section, we will discuss a few of them.
Visual Aids
For very young learners or learners at beginners level, a new word can be
explained as quickly and efficiently as possible through the following aids.
Realia or the use of real objects in the classroom e.g. a briefcase, a purse,
a pen, an egg or an orchid. But the use of such realia is limited to things
that can easily be taken to a classroom.
Pictures which include blackboard drawings, wall pictures, charts, flash
cards and any other non-technical visual representation. A picture can also
be used to create a situation or context.
a. Look at the picture given below. This obviously is a kitchen in an urban
setting. How will you use this picture in teaching vocabulary to your
student in a semi urban school in India?
63
Reading Comprehension b. What changes would you need to make to depict a typical (conservative)
rural Indian kitchen? List the changes.
Mime, action and gestures can explain actions (like walking, running) or
reactions (like fury, sorrow, surprise or joy).
Hyponyms (word categories)
Orange is a fruit and so is an apple, banana or a mango. The word fruit is
a superordinate while the name of other fruits given above are the hyponyms.
Similarly, learners are familiar with different items in the world around
them. Given below are some examples of this category of sense relationship.
Superordinate Hyponyms
Clothes shirt, trousers, frock, kurta…
Trees neem, banyan, gulmohar, acacia…
Different methods of cooking boil, simmer, bake, roast,
deep fry, stir fry, sauté…
Colours blue, red, white, crimson,
aquamarine, seagreen, ochre…
Collocation (word partnerships)

When two terms are used together frequently, they are said to collocate, e.g.
we can use the word colour in the following combination:
Adjective bright colour, favourite colour

Noun Colour blind, eye/hair colour,
Colour film, photograph,
Colour television
Preposition In colour
Source: Collins Cobuild Advanced Illustrated Dictionary

1. Read the words given below in the rectangle. Put them in proper
categories. One is done for you as an example. In some you have
to write the categories in the boxes.
Human
dwellings
1 wigwam
Apartment Canada Mansion
Iceland Mammoth Sofa
Norway Villa Wigwam
Dinosaurs Chaise lounge Denmark
Chair Duckbilled
platypus
Igloo Tent Bungalow
Countries
64
Teaching Vocabulary
2. We often use certain words in combination with others. An example
is given for you. Use a dictionary, if necessary.
Money make, …………..
Friend close, ……………
Antonyms (opposites)
The term antonym is used to refer to words which have an opposite meaning.
But there are pairs of words which contrast in terms of a scale, e.g. hot/cold;
tall/short; easy/difficult. These opposites are gradable. For example, if we
put hot/cold (water) at two ends of a continuum, we get something like this.
Scalding hot  boiling hot  warm  lukewarm  tepid  quite

cold  freezing cold
But think of opposites male/female. Such meanings are non gradable or

mutually exclusive. A boy cannot be a girl or a dead person cannot be alive/
living.
Synonyms (Similar Meaning)
Every language has groups of lexical items which are very similar in meaning
(Synonym) but are never identical. For example: angry, annoyed, upset and
irritated may be synonyms but each word differ slightly from the others. As
a teacher, you have to pay attention to synonyms if you wish to encourage
your students to choose appropriate words in different types of writing.

1. Make a word continuum for the pair big/small.
Huge  very big   very small ? tiny
..............................................................................................................
..............................................................................................................
2. Make a matching exercise for your class V students to teach (non-
gradable) opposites e.g. black / white.
..............................................................................................................
..............................................................................................................
3. Can words like limp, hobble, stroll, saunter, march, stride, trudge
and trek be used as synonyms of walk? Consult a dictionary and
give reasons for your answer.
..............................................................................................................
..............................................................................................................
..............................................................................................................
4. How many synonyms are there for the word glamour? Write them
here.
..............................................................................................................
..............................................................................................................
65
Reading Comprehension Associated Words
It is possible to draw on the knowledge of the world that the learners bring
to school. For example, look at the graphic illustrations of a kitchen given
earlier in this section. There are several picture dictionaries produced for
children which give such associated words. Before you read further on, try
completing this semantic map.
People surging
forward
as the train
enters
Sight Sound
A Big railway
station
Colour Smell
Porters Puris frying

(coolies) in Pakoras frying
red uniforms
Do you think these words and phrase can be used to develop a paragraph?
A scene at a railway station? Justify your answer.
...................................................................................................................
...................................................................................................................
Word Chart
Given below is a word chart on cricket in which you will find a number
of words (nearly 20) hidden. How many can you find? An example is given
for you. (some words are written from top to bottom, some left to right,
some right to left and some diagonally).
S W I N G B D U C K
K T O S S A Y R I P
I C U M P I R E A M
P R P M W I R K A W
P E I O P E N E R I
E A T A V O S N B D
R S C O G L O V E E
L E H B A I L N U R
1. Ask your learners to make a list of action words associated with cricket
(e.g. batting, fielding) and any other sports they like.
2. Prepare a word chart on any other sports, festivals or curricular topics
66 (geometry, plants, animals etc.)
Teaching Vocabulary
15.7 WORD BUILDING: AFFIXATION AND
COMPOUNDING
Affixation
We can build new words in English with the use of prefixes and suffixes to
the base word. For example, to the word mortal we can use the prefix im
to make a new word immortal and we can get the word immortalise by
adding the suffix- ise. Similarly, the word agree can take the prefix dis- to
make a new word disagree and another word disagreement with the suffix
– ment.
Use of prefixes like im-, dis- or multi- when added to the root
word gives it a different meaning. For example:
un - uncommon, unable
in - inconvenient, injustice
dis - disadvantage, disagree
il - illegal, illegible
ir - irregular, irrelevant
im - impossible, impatient
multi - multilingual, multifaceted
fore - forenoon,
Here are some suffixes:
- Age bag-baggage, post-postage
- dom kind-kingdom, star-stardom
- hood state-statehood, boy-boyhood
- ism hero-heroism, Hindu-Hinduism
Compounding
Compounds are made up of two or more parts which can also occur
independently as words. These separate words are combined to form other
new words which are listed separately in the dictionary and have separate
meanings.
Blackboard
Flowerpot
Armchair
67
1. Choose the correct prefix from the prefixes given in brackets to
express the kind of meaning indicated for each of the words given
below:
i. Contented (mal-, dis-, un-) negative ..............................
ii. Represent (non-, mal-, mis-) ‘wrongly’ ..............................
iii. Inform (mal-, mis-, dis-) ‘incorrectly’ ..............................
iv. Active (ultra-, in-, hyper-) ‘extremely ..............................
v. Comfortable (un-, dis-, non-) negative ..............................
2. Match the words in Column A with those in Column B to form
compounds
A B
brain pour
down felt
draw case
heart back
stairs torm
pin
15.8 USING A DICTIONARY AND A THESAURUS

Can we think of teaching of vocabulary to our learners without a dictionary?
How many times have we asked you to consult a dictionary to answer
different questions in this lesson?
While all dictionaries are of help in checking and learning of pronunciation
with the correct stress pattern, meaning in contexts (with examples) or
grammar of a word (e.g. the part of speech it belongs to; whether transitive
or intransitive in case of a verb or whether countable or uncountable in case
of a noun), a dictionary like the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
(2002 edition) (OALD) gives the origin of the word.
For example, Gordian Knot which means a very difficult or impossible task
or problem. Then in origin of the word it mentioned:
‘ORIGIN’: From the legend in which King Gordius tied a very complicated knot
and said that who ever untied it would become the ruler of Asia. Alexander the
Great cut through the knot with his sword.
Moreover, dictionaries like the Cambridge International Dictionary of English

(1995 edition), includes a picture dictionary (e.g. on kitchen, bicycles etc) as
does Advanced Oxford or Collins Cobuild.
68
The last dictionary mentioned here also includes word Webs or topic related Teaching Vocabulary
vocabulary through encyclopedia – like readings combined with related art
work, word partnerships (collocations) and word links (word origin) e.g.
(geo=earth; geography; geology, geopolitical) or even usage like less and
fewer. You also have used the dictionary to decide whether a particular word
is formal, informal, and shows approval and disapproval to complete your
task set in Check your progress 7. While the language of literary Criticism
of OALD is very informative; the Text Messaging and Emoticons included
in Collins Cobuild is very handy in an age of e-mails and SMSs. In other
words, a dictionary is not only a useful reference material but also a treasure
house of information to build up the vocabulary of your learners.
In higher classes, you will find both the thesaurus and the dictionary extremely
beneficial in reading and writing tasks.

1. Substitute the word nice in the following paragraph. Change sentence
construction, if necessary.
It was a nice morning. We went out for a nice picnic to a nice park
near our house. The food was nice and we played nice games. We
enjoyed the nice outing.
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
2a Make a cross word puzzle of ten new words that your students have
recently learnt.
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
2b Ask your students to write clues (across and down) (using a
dictionary, if necessary.)
.............................................................................................................
.............................................................................................................
15.9 VOCABULARY GAMES

You can revise and consolidate vocabulary presented in the classroom through
a variety of games in a classroom.
The basic aim of vocabulary games is to increase the students repertoire of
words – perhaps by extending his/her vocabulary or perhaps by giving him/
her practice in using what s/he already knows. Some examples of vocabulary
games which can be easily arranged in classrooms are given below.
Word chains: A word is written on the board. The next word has to begin
with last letter of the preceding word.
Class  soldier  rucksack  kangaroo, etc.
69
Reading Comprehension Associated words: Words related to a particular situation is listed down.
Garden  gardener  plants  seedlings, etc.
Semantic mapping: is simple to implement and can be adapted to meet a
variety of objectives. You can use the following procedure:
1 Choose a word or topic
2 Write the word on chalkboard/chart paper
3 Ask students what kind of information they would like to include.
4 Encourage students to think of and write as many related words as
possible.
5 Write the words under appropriate heading.
6 Have a class discussion, using the map as a guide.
Make a semantic map for trains. Some hints are given here:
Parts Uses/things it does Kinds Workers
Engine Transports people Passenger Driver
Bogie/coach Transports goods Express Guard
Wagon Carries mail Tram Train Ticket
Examiner
Wheel Gives whistle Metro Hawker
Berth Freight/Goods
Buffet
Locomotive
Caboose
Sleeper
Communication cord
Compartment
The simple and compound Game: Choose a base word. Ask students to
produce as many words as they can which contain the base word e.g. if the
word chosen is self, then the words selfless, yourself, myself, self made, self
pity and many more.
In “Wordfinder” the students are given a word and they have to make as
many words as they can from the letters in it. How many words do you
think you can make from the word grandmother? You can also allow your
students to use their dictionaries to check possible answers.
In Word Search Game the students are given a scrambled word from which
they have to find the original word and make as many words as they can
from the letters in it. You can assign a score to each word. One who gets
the total score first wins the game. This game can be played at individual
or group level.
70 One example is given here:

Teaching Vocabulary
R A D N E R G E
There are eight letters in the box. Rearrange the letters to find the
original word and make as many meaningful words as you can. A
word should have minimum three letters in it. While assigning score
to each word you can consider the number of letters in a word as the
criteria.
 5 points for three letter words
 10 points for four letter words
 15 points for five/seven letter words
 25 points for the original word
Total score = 65 points
Some of the words you can make from the letters in the box are:
AGE
DRAG
RAGE
GRADE
GARDEN
GARDENER
Unscramble the word is a game in which the learners are required to find
a word from a set of scrambled letters. The teacher can choose a theme and
make a series of related words in scrambled letter form. The theme works
as a hint for the learners. You can use themes from across the curriculum.
Two examples are done for you.
a) Unscramble the following words.
Hint: All the words are related to Mathematics.
IUDSAR RADIUS
RETMEAID DIAMETER
IMEREPTER PERIMETER
RAEA AREA
MULOEV VOLUME
NLAITREG TRIANGLE
EQRSAU SQUARE
TCNRLEGEA RECTANGLE
GANLE ANGLE 71
b) Unscramble the following words.
Hint: All the words are related to PLANT.
WOLFRE FLOWER
OCTOOMN MONOCOT
GAMITS STIGMA
LLPNEO POLLEN
TMALIEFN FILAMENT
MAENTS STAMEN
EHTNAR ANTHER
VSLAEE LEAVES
These are a few examples. There are many more games that you can choose
from, depending on the level that you teach.
15.10 LET US SUM UP

Isolated words are difficult to remember. When we learn words and phrases,
our memory tries to group words that go together so that one word of phrase
reminds us another. We have discussed some of these in different sections
of this lesson e.g.
 Related to the same topic (Associated words e.g. the picture on kitchen)
 Examples of a more general word (superordinate – Hyponyms, e.g.
Furniture – table, chair etc.)
 Similar in meaning (synonyms e.g. lazy – indolent)
 Opposite in meaning (mix-separate)
 Arranged along a scale (word continuum e.g.
letter – word – phrase – sentence – paragraph – page – chapte – book
 Built from the same basic word (Affixation, Compound words e.g. Type
– retype (prefix) , child – children (suffix), type + write (compound
words)
However, you must have observed that all the techniques discussed in the
lesson are applicable to teaching of content words. Teaching of Function/
Structure words is dealt with in the unit on Teaching of Grammar.
Secondly, a word is rarely learnt at one go. Hence, the need to review, revise
and recycle words at frequent intervals so that the learning is spiral and a
new aspect is added gradually over the years. Last but not the least, is the
use of the mother tongue in providing a quick word meaning in a classroom.
While it is easier to give / supply a mother tongue equivalent and classroom
saves time, the technique should be sparingly used and must never be a
practice. A classroom is the only place to listen to and use the second
72 language, and hence optimal use of available time in absolutely necessary.
Moreover, vocabulary teaching does not end in school. It continues well Teaching Vocabulary
into our adult life. It is a life-long process. Also our passive vocabulary is
much larger than our active vocabulary.
Different techniques – Separately and in combination – may be effectively
used for teaching, expanding and consolidating student vocabulary. Dictionary
and Thesaurus are very important reference material and students should be
taught and encouraged to use the same. Vocabulary games make learning /
revising of known words enjoyable.
15.11 REFERENCESAND SUGGESTED READINGS

Redman, S. and Ellis, R. 1995. A Way with Words. Books 1 and 2. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
MC Carthy, M. and O’Deu, F. 1996. English Vocabulary in Use. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Doff, A. 1988. Teaching English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gairns, R. and Redman, S. 1996. Working with Words. Cambridge Handbooks
for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ellis, R. and Tomlinson, B. 1979. Teaching Secondary English. Harlow:
Longman.
Harmer, J. 1983. The Practice of English Language Teaching. Harlow:
Longman.
Morgan, J. and Rinvolucri, M. 1986. Vocabulary. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
UKOU.(1980). Words and Their Meanings. Milton Keynes:UKOU
15.12 ANSWERS
1 Open ended and answers will vary.
2 We do not learn those words which we don’t use. Also to use a word
one must know the meaning, the pronunciation, the context in which
the word can be used, the other words that need to be used with that
particular word and also the grammar of the word.
1 Phishing, iPod, Blue tooth, Smart Card, Smiley
2 a) Phishing (noun) – The practice of trying to trick people into giving
secret financial information. (computing)
b) Handblend, Milkshake, Clone (n/v),
iPod, Flashmob, Bluetooth, smart card, smiley (noun)
cute (adjective)
3 Do it in yourself. 73
Reading Comprehension Check Your Progress 3
1 i located…….. River (context). Real Life Context – Location
ii Most of the …………. our area are closed (Context). Real Life
Context (Financial Institution)
iii aeroplane …….. before it landed (context). Real Life context –
Aircraft changing direction.
Students may be familiar with both (i) and (ii) in their real life. (iii) may
be difficult because many of them may not have travelled by air. Can
refer to pictures, movies, etc.
2 The Context is not clear. Which fan are we talking about? – The ceiling,
table or pedestal fans in a room or the ardent admirers (as in the fans
of Aamir Khan)
3 There was no light in the room.
I prefer light colour paint on walls.
I am very light sleeper.
Let have some light refreshment.
1 The correct word should have been brake. The person who has got it
written does not know the difference of meaning between break and
brake.
2 a) Explain that there refers to place/location whereas their refers to
people.
b) Practice the words in fill in the blanks separately to establish meaning
and then in both kinds of meanings.
3 Blue – blew; see – sea; sale – sail; son – sun; piece - peace.
1 a) Good leaders lead (v) from the front.
Use a lead (n) pencil to draw and sketch.
b) We live (v) in the capital city of India.
Be careful of live (adjective) wires. / A live (adjective) telecast of the
final tennis match.
2 Do it yourself.
1 a) If you play second fiddle to someone, your position is less important
although you work together; if you have had enough, you are
unhappy with a situation and want it to stop.
b) have no time.
c) If you have a head like a sieve you do tend to forget important
things.
2 a) get the message.
b) a skeleton in the cupboard.
c) drop a line.
74
Check Your Progress 7 Teaching Vocabulary
Laudatory – formal
Smart alec – informal, disapproval
Dirt cheap – informal
Dude – informal
Sissy – informal, disapproval
Felicitous – formal
Soporific – formal
Clobber – informal
Super ordinate Hyponyms
1 Dwellings (human) Villa, wigwam, apartment, mansion,
bungalow, igloo, tent
2 Countries Canada, Iceland, Norway, Scotland,
Denmark
3 Furniture Sofa, coffee table, chaise longue, chair
4 Animals (Extinct) Mammoth, dinosaurus, duckbilled platypus
2. Make : mess; comment; money; suggestion

Close : contest/election; contact; friend; family; connection;
attention
Hair (colour) : golden; red; black; white; grey; auburn; salt and pepper;
blonde
Hair (style) : long; short; frizzy; permed; straight; shoulder/waist/knee
length; curly
1 Huge – very big – big – quite big – medium sized – quite small – small
- tiny
2 Do it yourself.
3 Do it yourself.
4 Do it yourself.
1. i. Contented (mal-, dis-, un-) negative discontented
ii. Represent (non-, mal-, mis-) ‘wrongly’ misrepresent
iii. Inform (mal-, mis-, dis-) ‘incorrectly’ misinform
iv. Active (ultra-, in-, hyper-) ‘extremely hyperactive
v. Comfortable (un-, dis-, non-) negative uncomfortable
2. Brainstorm
Downpour
Drawback
Heartfelt
75
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BES-144

Prof. Aejaz Mashih Dr. Gaurav Singh

SPECIAL INVITEES (FACULTY OF SOE)

Course Coordinator : Ms. Poonam Bhushan

Dr. Pushpinder Syal Format Editing

Block 2 Listening Comprehension and Speaking

Block 3 Reading Comprehension

Block 4 Teaching Writing and Grammar

11.3 REASONS FOR READING AND READING

Check Your Progress 1

Check Your Progress 2

11.5 TEACHING OBJECTIVES FOR READING

11.6 PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING PRODUCING

Check Your Progress 3

 what reading style is suitable?

Let us look at some examples of while-reading questions here.

Cheek Your Progress

11.8 LET US SUM UP

11.9 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

11.10 SUGGESTED READING

Check the What was Where is Is there anyone

Check Your Progress 1

12.4 SKIMMING AND SCANNING

Title The Longest Letter in the World

Check Your Progress 2

12.4 DEVICES USED FOR TEXTUAL COHESION

Check Your Progress 3

12.5 FUNCTIONS OF A TEXT

1. Angry mob sets two DTC buses on fire

11. THE INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED FINANCIAL ANALYSIS OF

Check Your Progress 4

12.6 ORGANISATION OF THE TEXT

 Main idea and supporting details

Let’s look at some examples:

Margarine Breathing Explosives

Aim: To train the students to understand comparisons/contrasts used in

Check Your Progress 5

12.7 LET US SUM UP

12.8 KEY WORDS

12.9 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

12.10 UGGESTED READINGS

13.4 TEACHING PROSE

Check Your Progress 1

Check Your Progress 2

13.6 TEACHING DRAMA

13.7 LET US SUM UP

13.8 REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READING

14.3 The Language of Poetry

14.4 Types of Poetry

14.5 Activities and Exercises in Teaching Poetry

14.6 Let Us Sum Up

14.7 References and Suggested Reading

14.3 THE LANGUAGE OF POETRY

44 And the sailor home from the sea.

Check Your Progress 1

Resembled the point of a pin

14.5 ACTIVITIES AND EXERCISES IN

I make a sudden sally.

Check Your Progress 2